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Essays  and  Reviews. 


ESSAYS 


AND 


REVI  EWS. 


RT.  REV.  J.  L  SPALDING,  D.D., 

Bisliop  of  Peoria, 


New  York : 

THE  CATHOLIC   PUBLICATION  SOCIETY, 

9  Barclay  Street. 

1877, 


Copyright : 
L.  KEHOE. 

1877. 


PREFACE. 


HE  papers  contained  in  this  volume 
have  appeared,  with  one  or  two 
exceptions,  substantially  as  they  are 
here  published,  in  the  Catholic  World  during 
the  last  eighteen  months.  The  essay  entitled 
"  Religion  and  Art "  has  been  rewritten  from 
a  sketch  made  several  years  ago.  Some  of 
the  subjects  which  are  here  discussed,  hurriedly 
and  imperfectly  enough,  have  at  least  the  merit 
of  dealing  with  questions  of  present  interest ; 
and  throughout  the  entire  volume  that  w^hich 
has  chiefly  engaged  my  thought  is  religion, 
which,  however  it  be  considered,  remains,  and 
must  for  ever  remain,  the  chief  and  most  essen- 


4r- 


6'  Preface. 

tial  element  in  the  history  and  civihzation  of 
mankind,  as  it  alone  gives  to  human  nature  a 
hif^her  than  animal  value  and  a  more  than 
mortal  destiny. 

Xrw  York,  May  r,  1877, 


CONTENTS. 


PACK 

TuE  Catholic  Church  in  the  Uxixfin  States,  1776-1S76,  9 

The  PERSEcrTioN  of  the  Church  in  the  German   Em- 
pire,          «...  50 

Comparative  Influence  of  Catholicism  and   Protest- 
antism ON  National  Prosperity. 

I.  Wealth, 88 

II.   Education ii9 

III.  Morality, 151 

Prussia  and  the  Church. 

1 190 

II., 2lg 

III 249 

German  Journalism, 27S 

Religion  and  Art, 306 


Essays  and  Reviews. 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  IN  THE  UNITED 

STATES,  1776-1876. 

IHE  conditions  of  social  life  which  have 
been  developed  in  the  European  colo- 
nies of  North  America,  though  to  a 
certain  extent  the  result  of  the  physical 
surroundings  of  the  early  settlers,  are  chiefly  the 
freer  growth  of  principles  which  have  been  active 
for  centuries  in  the  Christian  nations  of  the  Old 
World.  The  elements  of  society  here,  unhindered  by 
custom,  law,  or  privilege,  grouped  themselves  quick- 
ly and  spontaneously  into  the  forms  to  which  they 
are  tending  in  Europe  also,  but  slowly  and  through 
conflict  and  struggle.  The  great  and  most  signifi- 
cant fact,  that  it  was  found  impossible  in  the  New 
World  to  create  privileged  classes,  clearly  pointed 
in  the  direction  in  which  European  civilization  was 
moving.  Another  fact  not  less  noteworthy  was  the 
failure  of  every  attempt  to  establish  religion  in  this 
country. 


lo  The  Catholic  Chunh  in 

Though  there  is  but  little  to  please  the  fancy  or 
fire  the  imagination  in  American  character  or  insti- 
tutions, it  is  nevertheless  to  this  country  that  the 
eyes  of  the  thoughtful  and  observant  from  eveiy 
part  of  the  world  are  turned.  The  catholicity  of 
Christian  civilization  has  generalized  political  prob- 
lems and  social  movements.  Civilization,  like  reli- 
gion, has  ceased  to  be  national  ;  and  the  bear- 
ing of  a  people's  life  upon  the  welfare  of  the 
human  race  has  come  to  be  of  greater  moment 
than  its  effect  upon  the  national  character.  It  is 
to  this  that  the  universal  interest  which  centres  in 
the  United  States  must  be  attributed. 

We  are  a  commonplace  and  mediocre  people ; 
practical,  without  high  ideals,  lofty  aspirations,  or 
excellent  standards  of  worth  and  character.  In 
philosophy,  in  science,  in  literature,  in  art,  in  cul- 
ture, we  are  inferior  to  the  nations  of  Europe.  No 
mind  transcendentally  great  has  appeared  among 
us  ;  not  one  who  is  heir  to  all  the  ages  and  citizen 
of  the  world.  Our  ablest  thinkers  are  merely  the 
disciples  of  some  foreign  master.  Our  most  gifted 
poets  belong  to  the  careful  kind,  who  with  effort 
and  the  file  give  polish  and  smoothness,  but  not 
the  viois  divinior,  to  their  verse  ;  and  who,  when 
they  attempt  a  loftier  flight,  grow  dull  and  mono- 
tonous as  a  Western  prairie  or  Rocky  Mountain 
table-land.  Our  most  popular  heroes — Washington 
and  Lincoln — are  but  common  men,  and  the  higher 
is  he  who  is  least  the  product  of  our  democratic  in- 
stitutions. 

Our  commercial  enterprise  and  mechanical  achieve- 


the  United  States,  1 776-1876.  n 

ments  are  worthy  of  admiration,  but  not  so  far  above 
those  of  other  nations  as  to  attract  special  attention. 
If  to-day,  then,  the  American  people  draw  the 
eyes  of  the  whole  world  upon  themselves,  it  is  not 
because  they  have  performed  marvellous  deeds, 
opened  up  new  realms  of  thought,  or  created  high- 
er types  of  character,  but  because  their  social  and 
political  condition  is  that  to  which  Europe,  whether 
for  good  or  evil,  seems  to  be  irresistibly  approach- 
ing. Beyond  doubt,  the  tendency  of  modern  civ- 
ilization is  to  give  to  the  people  greater  power  and 
a  larger  sphere  of  action.  Every  attempt  to  arrest 
this  movement  but  serves  to  make  its  force  the 
more  manifest.  This  spirit  of  the  age  is  seen  in 
the -general  spread  of  education,  in  the  widening 
of  the  popular  suffrage,  in  the  separation  of  church 
and  state,  and  in  the  dying  out  of  aristocracies. 
We  simply  note  facts,  without  stopping  to  examine 
principles  or  to  weigh  consequences.  Those  who 
resist  a  revolution  are  persuaded  that  it  will  work 
nothing  but  evil,  while  those  who  help  it  on  hope 
from  it  every  good  ;  and  the  event  most  generally 
shows  both  to  have  been  in  error.  Our  present 
purpose  does  not  lead  us  to  speculate  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  the  general  welfare  is  to  be  af- 
fected by  the  great  social  transformations  by  which 
the  character  of  civilized  nations  is  being  so  pro- 
foundly modified  ;  but  we  will  suppose  that  the 
reign  of  aristocracies  and  of  privilege  is  past,  and 
that  in  the  future  the  people  are  to  govern  ;  and 
we  ask,  What  will  be  the  influence  of  the  new 
society  upon  the  old  faith  ? 


12  The  Catholic  Church  m 

The  essential  life  of  the  Catholic  Church  is  inde- 
pendent of  her  worldly  condition  ;  and  though  we 
are  bound  to  believe  that  she  is  to  remain  amongst 
iTien  until  the  end,  we  are  yet  not  forbidden  to 
hold  that  at  times  she  may  to  human  eyes  seem 
almost  to  have  ceased  to  be  ;  that  as  in  the  past 
Christ  was  entombed,  the  dcletuin  iioinen  Chris- 
tiamun  was  proclaimed,  in  the  future  also  the 
heavens  may  grow  dark,  God's  countenance  seem- 
ingly be  withdrawn,  and  the  voice  of  despair  cry 
out  that  all  have  bent  the  knee  to  Baal. 

"  But  yet  the  Son  of  Man,  when  he  cometh,  shall 
he  find,  think  you,  faith  on  earth  ?  "  Wc  may  hope, 
we  may  despond  ;  let  us,  then,  dispassionately  con- 
sider th.e  facts. 

First,  we  will  put  aside  the  assumption  that  it  is 
possible  to  organize  this  modern  society  so  as  to 
crush  the  church  by  persecution  or  violence.  In  a 
social  state,  which  can  be  strong  only  by  being  just, 
attempts  of  this  kind,  if  successful,  would  inevita- 
bly lead  to  anarchy  and  chaos,  out  of  which  the 
church  would  again  come  forth  with  or  before  the 
civil  order.  We  cannot,  then,  look  forward  to  a 
prolonged  and  open  conflict  between  the  church 
and  the  civilized  governments  of  the  world  without 
giving  up  all  hope  in  the  permanency  and  effective- 
ness of  the  social  phase  upon  which  we  have  en- 
tered. In  the  end  the  European  states,  like  the 
American,  must  be  convinced  that,  if  they  would 
live,  they  must  also  let  live ;  since  a  modus  vivendi 
between  church  and  state  is  absolutely  essential  to 
the  permanence  of  society  as  now  constituted. 


the  United  States,  1776-1876.  13 

The  question,  then,  is  narrowed  to  the  free  and 
peaceable  life  of  the  church  in  contact  with  the  pop- 
ular governments  which  are  already  constituted  or 
are  struggling  for  existence  ;  and  it  is  in  their  bear- 
ing upon  this  all-important  subject  that  the  world- 
wide significance  of  the  lessons  to  be  learned  from 
a  careful  study  of  the  history  of  the  Catholic 
Church  in  the  United  States  becomes  apparent. 
For  a  hundred  years  this  church  has  lived  in  the 
new  society,  and  all  the  circumstances  of  her  posi- 
tion have  been  admirably  suited  to  test  her  power 
to  meet  the  difficulties  offered  by  a  democratic 
social  organization.  The  problem  to  be  solved  was 
whether  or  not  a  vigorous  but  yet  orderly  and  obe- 
dient Catholic  faith  and  life  could  flourish  in  this 
country,  where  what  are  called  the  principles  of 
modern  civilization  have  found  their  most  complete 
expression. 

If  we  would  understand  the  history  of  our  coun- 
try, we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  religious  charac- 
ter of  the  men  by  whom  it  was  explored  and  colon- 
ized. Religious  zeal  led  the  Puritans  to  New  Eng- 
land, the  Catholics  to  Maryland,  and  the  Quakers 
to  Pennsylvania  ;  and  among  the  Spaniards  and  the 
French  there  were  many  who,  like  Columbus  and 
Champlain,  deemed  the  salvation  of  a  soul  of 
greater  moment  than  the  conquest  of  an  empire. 
We  might,  indeed,  without  going  beyond  our  pre- 
sent subject,  speak  of  the  heroic  and  gentle  lives 
of  the  apostolic  men  who,  from  Maine  to  California, 
from  Florida  to  the  Northern  Lakes,  toiled  among 
the  Indians,  and   not  in  vain,  that  they  might  win 


14  The  Catholic  Church  in 

them  from  savage  ways  and  lift  them  up  to  higher 
modes  of  life.  The  Catholics  of  the  United  States 
can  never  forget  that  the  labors  of  these  men  be- 
long to  the  history  of  the  church  on  this  continent ; 
that  the  lives  they  offered  up,  the  blood  tliey  shed, 
plead  for  us  before  God  ;  and  that  if  their  work  is 
disappearing,  it  sinks  into  the  grave  only  with  the 
dying  race  which  they  more  than  all  others  have 
loved  and  served.  But  in  this  age  men  are  little 
inclined  to  dwell  upon  memories,  however  glorious. 
We  live  in  the  present  and  in  the  future,  and,  in 
spite  of  much  cheap  sentiment  and  wordy  philan- 
thropy, we  have  but  weak  sympathy  with  decaying 
races.  We  are  interested  in  what  is  or  is  to  be,  not 
in  what  has  been  ;  and  perhaps  it  is  well  that  this 
is  so.  We  have  but  feeble  power  to  think  or  act  or 
love,  and  it  should  not  be  wasted.  If  Americans 
to-<lay  are  busy  with  thoughts  of  a  hundred  years 
ago,  it  is  not  that  they  love  those  old  times  and 
their  simple  ways,  but  that  by  contrast  they  may, 
in  boastful  self-complacency,  glory  in  the  present. 
They  look  back,  not  to  regret  the  fast-receding 
shore,  but  to  congratulate  themselves  that  they 
have  left  it  already  so  far  behind.  It  is  enough, 
then,  to  have  alluded  to  the  labors  of  the  Catholic 
missionaries  among  the  North  American  Indians, 
since  those  labors  have  had  and  can  have  but  small 
influence  upon  the  history  of  the  church  in  the 
United  States.  To  understand  this  history  we 
need  only  study  that  of  the  Europeans  and  their 
descendants  on  this  continent. 

The  early  colonists  of  the  present  territor}-  of  the 


the  United  States,  i  776-1876.  15 

United  States  were  as  unlike  in  their  religious  as  in 
their  national  characters.  English  Puritans  founded 
the  colonies  of  New  England  ;  New  York  was  set- 
tled by  the  Dutch  ;  Delaware  and  New  Jersey  by 
the  Dutch  and  the  Swedes;  Pennsylvania  by 
Quakers  from  England,  who  were  followed  by  a 
German  colony.  Virginia  was  the  home  of  the 
English  who  adhered  to  the  Established  Church 
of  the  mother  country,  and  North  Carolina  became 
the  refuge  of  the  Nonconformists  from  Virginia  ;  in 
South  Carolina  a  considerable  number  of  Hugue- 
nots found  an  asylum ;  and  in  Maryland  the  first 
settlers  were  chiefly  English  Catholics.  Nearly  all 
these  colonies  owed  their  foundation  to  the  reli- 
gious troubles  of  Europe.  The  Puritans,  the  Ca- 
tholics, and  the  Quakers  were  more  eager  to  find  a 
home  in  which  they  could  freely  worship  God  than 
to  amass  wealth. 

The  religious  spirit  of  New  England,  whose  in- 
fluence in  this  country,  before  and  since  the  Revo- 
lution, has  been  preponderant,  was  as  narrow  and 
proscriptive  as  it  was  intense,  and  a  gloomy  fana- 
ticism lay  at  the  basis  of  its  entire  political  and 
social  i?ystem.  The  Puritan  colonies  were  not  so 
much  bodies  politic  as  churches  in  the  wilderness. 
To  the  commission  appointed  to  draw  up  a  body 
of  laws  to  serve  as  a  declaration  of  rights.  Cotton 
Mather  declared  that  God's  people  should  be  gov- 
erned by  no  other  laws  than  those  which  He  him- 
self had  given  to  Moses  ;  and  one  of  the  first  acts 
of  the  Massachusetts  colony  was  the  expulsion  of 
John  -and  Samuel  13rowne  with  their  followers,  be- 


1 6  TJie  Catholic  Church  in 

cause  they  refused  to  conform  to  the  religious  prac- 
tices of  the  Pilgrims.  If  dissenting  Protestants 
were  not  tolerated  in  New  England,  Catholics  cer- 
tainly could  not  hope  for  mercy;  and,  in  fact,  they 
were  denied  religious  liberty  even  in  Rhode  Island, 
which  had  been  founded  by  the  victims  of  Puritan 
persecution  as  a  refuge  for  the  oppressed  and  a 
protest  against  fanaticism.  Though  Mr.  Bancroft, 
Aviiose  partisan  zeal  whenever  there  is  question  of 
New  England  is  unmistakable,  denies  that  this 
unjust  discrimination  was  the  act  of  the  people  of 
Rhode  Island,  it  served,  at  any  rate,  so  effectually 
to  exclude  Catholics  that  when  the  war  of  inde- 
pendence broke  out  not  one  was  to  be  found  within 
the  limits  of  the  colony. 

Puritanism,  more  than  any  other  form  of  Protes- 
tantism, drew  its  very  life  from  a  hatred  of  all  that  is 
Catholic.  The  office  and  authority  of  bishops,  the 
repetition  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  sign  of  the 
cross,  the  chant  of  the  psalms,  the  observance  of 
saints'  days,  the  use  of  musical  instruments  in 
church,  and  the  vestments  worn  by  the  ministers 
of  religion  were  all  odious  to  the  Puritans  because 
they  were  associated  with  Catholic  worship  ;  and 
in  their  eyes  the  chief  crime  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land was  that  she  still  retained  some  of  the  doc- 
trines and  usages  of  that  of  Rome.  Religion  and 
freedom,  though  their  conception  of  both  was  par- 
tial and  false,  were  the  predominant  passions  of  the 
Puritans  ;  and  since  they  looked  upon  the  Catholic 
Church  as  the  fatal  enemy  alike  of  religion  and  of 
freedom,  their  fanaticism,  not  less  than  their  onthu- 


the  United  States,  i  776-1876.  17 

siastic  love  of  independence,  filled  them  with  the 
deepest  hatred  for  Catholics.  They  had  the  virtues 
and  the  vices  of  the  lower  and  more  ignorant  classes 
of  Englishmen,  from  which  for  the  most  part  they 
had  sprung.  If  they  were  frugal,  content  with 
little,  ready  to  bear  hardship  and  to  suffer  want, 
not  easily  cast  down,  they  were  also  narrow,  super- 
stitious, angular,  and  unlovely  ;  and  these  charac- 
teristics were  hardened  by  a  cold,  gloomy,  and  un- 
sympathetic religious  faith.  The  credulity  which  led 
them  to  hang  witches  made  them  ready  to  believe  in 
the  diabolism  of  priests  ;  while  the  narrowness  of 
their  intellectual  range  rendered  them  incapable  of' 
perceiving  the  grandeur  and  excellence  of  an  organi- 
zation which  alone,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  has 
become  universal  without  becoming  weak,  and 
Avhich,  if  it  be  considered  as  only  human,  is  still 
man's  most  wonderful  work.  With  the  aesthetic 
beauty  of  the  Catholic  religion  they  could  have  no 
sympathy,  since  they  were  deprived  of  the  sense 
by  which  alone  it  can  be  appreciated.  Though 
they  fasted,  appointed  days  of  thanksgiving,  and, 
through  a  false  asceticism,  changed  the  Lord's  day 
into  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  the  fasts  and  saints'  days 
of  Catholics  were  in  their  eyes  the  superstitions  of 
idolaters  ;  and  while  they  assumed  the  right  to 
declare  what  is  true  Christian  doctrine  and  to  en- 
force its  acceptance,  they  indignantly  rejected  the 
spiritual  authority  of  the  church,  though  historically 
traceable  to  Christ's  commission  to  the  apostles. 

The   measures,  therefore,   which  the  colonies  of 
New   England   took  to   prevent   the  establishment 


i8  The  Catholic  CJiurch  in 

of  the  Catholic  Church  on  their  soil,  were  merely 
the  expression  of  the  horror  and  dread  of  what  they 
conceived  its  influence  and  tendency  to  be.  In 
163 1,  just  eleven  years  after  the  landing  of  the 
Mayflewer,  Sir  Christopher  Gardiner,  on  mere  sus- 
picion of  being  a  papist,  was  seized  and  sent  out 
of  the  Colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  in  the 
same  year  the  General  Court  wrote  a  letter  de- 
nouncing the  minister  at  Watertown  for  giving  ex- 
pression to  the  opinion  that  the  Church  of  Rome  is 
a  true  church.  Three  years  later  Roger  Williams, 
whose  tolerant  temper  has  been  an  exhaustless 
"theme  of  praise,  joined  with  the  Puritans  in  declar- 
ing the  cross  a  "  relic  of  Antichrist,  a  popish  symbol 
savoring  of  superstition  and  not  to  be  countenanced 
by  Christian  men  "  ;  and,  in  proof  of  the  sincerity 
of  their  zeal,  these  godly  men  cut  the  cross  from 
out  the  English  flag.  Priests  were  forbidden,  under 
pain  of  imprisonment  and  even  death,  to  enter  the 
colonies;  and  the  neighboring  Catholic  settlements 
of  Canada  were  regarded  with  sentiments  of  such 
bigoted  hatred  as  to  blind  the  Puritans  to  their  own 
most  evident  political  and  commercial  interests. 
So  unrelenting  was  their  fanaticism  that  one  of  the 
grievances  which  they  most  strongly  urged  against 
George  III.  was  that  he  tolerated  popery  in  Canada. 
In  the  New  England  colonies,  down  to  1776,  the 
Catholic  Church  had  no  existence,  and  the  same 
may  be  said  of  the  other  colonies,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Maryland  and  of  a  few  families  scattered 
through  parts  of  Pennsylvania.  In  Maryland  itself, 
where  the  principles  of  religious  liberty,  which  now 


the  United  States,  i  776-1876.  19 

form  a  part  of  the  organic  law  of  the  land,  had 
been  first  prockumed  by  the  Catholic  colonists,  the 
persecution  of  the  church  early  became  an  important 
feature  in  the  colonial  legislation.  In  successive 
enactments  the  Catholics  were  forbidden  to  teach 
school,  to  hold  civil  office,  and  to  have  public  wor- 
ship ;  and  were,  moreover,  taxed  for  the  support 
of  the  Established  Church.  The  religious  character 
of  Virginia,  though  less  intense  and  earnest  than 
that  of  New  England,  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
been  less  anti-Catholic;  and  it  is  therefore  not  sur- 
prising that  we  should  find  the  cruel  penal  code  of 
the  mother  country  in  full  vigor  in  this  colony. 

It  would  have  been  difficult  to  find  anywhere 
communities  more  thoroughly  Protestant  than  these 
thirteen  British  colonies  one  hundred  years  ago. 
The  little  body  of  Catholics  in  Maryland,  in  all 
about  25,000,  who,  in  spite  of  persecution,  had  re- 
tained their  faith,  had  sunk  into  a  kind  of  religious 
apathy ;  and  as  their  public  worship  had  long  been 
forbidden  and  they  were  not  permitted  to  have 
schools,  to  indifference  was  added  ignorance  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  church.  A  few  priests,  once  mem- 
bers of  the  suppressed  Society  of  Jesus,  lingered 
amongst  them,  though  they  generally  found  it 
necessary  to  live  upon  their  own  lands  or  with  their 
kindred,  and  with  difficulty  kept  alive  the  flickering 
flame  of  faith.  Without  religious  energy,  zeal,  or 
organization,  the  IMaryland  Catholics  were  gradu- 
ally being  absorbed  into  mere  worldliness  or  into 
the  more  vigorous  Protestant  sects;  and,  in  fact, 
many  of  the  descendants  of  the  original  settlers  had 


20  The  Catholic  ChjM'ch  in 

already  lost  the  faith.  In  this  way  the  character 
of  the  old  Catholic  colony  had  been  wholly  changed  ; 
so  that  Maryland  surpassed  all  the  other  colonies 
in  the  odious  proscriptiveness  of  her  legislation, 
levying  the  same  tax  for  the  introduction  into  her 
territory  of  a  Catholic  Irishman  as  for  the  importa- 
tion of  a  negro  slave.  The  existence  of  the  Catholic 
families  there,  and  of  the  small  and  scattered  set- 
tlements in  Pennsylvania,  if  recognized  at  all  by 
the  general  public,  was  looked  upon  as  an  anomaly, 
an  anachronism,  which,  from  the  nature  of  things, 
must  soon  disappear.  There  is  no  .  exaggeration, 
then,  in  saying  that  the  Revolution  found  the  Bri- 
tish provinces  of  North  America  thoroughly  Pro- 
testant, with  a  hatred  of  the  church  which  nothing 
but  the  general  contempt  for  Catholics  tended  to 
mitigate  ;  while  the  seeming  failure  of  the  Catholic 
settlement  in  Maryland,  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  after  the  landing  of  Lord  Baltimore,  gave  no 
promise  of  a  brighter  future  for  the  faith. 

In  the  presence  of  the  impending  conflict  with 
England  political  questions  became  supreme,  and  the 
Convention  of  1774,  in  its  appeal  to  the  country, 
entreated  all  classes  of  citizens  to  put  away  reli- 
gious disputes  and  animosities,  which  could  only 
withhold  them  from  uniting  in  the  defence  of  their 
common  rights  and  liberties.  Though  this  appeal 
was  probably  meant  to  smooth  the  way  for  a  more 
cordial  union  between  New  England  and  the  South- 
ern colonies,  which  were  even  then  as  unlike  as 
Puritan  and  Cavalier,  it  was  also  an  evidence  of 
the  public  feeling,  showing  that  with  the  American 


the  United  States,  i  776-1876.  21 

people  religious  questions  were  fast  coming"  to  be 
merely  of  secondary  importance.  At  any  rate  it 
was  responded  to  cheerfully  and  generously  by  the 
Catholics,  who,  without  stopping  to  think  of  the 
wrongs  they  had  suffered,  threw  themselves  hear- 
tily into  the  contest  for  national  independence. 
The  signer  of  the  Declaration  who  risked  most  was 
a  Catholic,  and  a  Catholic  priest  was  a  member  of 
the  delegation  sent  to  Canada  to  bring  about  an 
alliance,  or  at  least  to  secure  the  neutrality  of  that 
province. 

The  conduct  of  the  Catholics  in  the  war  made, 
no  doubt,  a  favorable  impression,  and  the  very  im- 
portant aid  given  to  the  American  cause  by  Catho- 
lic France  had  still  further  influence  in  softening 
the  asperities  of  Protestant  prejudice  ;  but,  unless 
we  are  mistaken,  we  must  seek  elsewhere  for  the 
explanation  of  the  clause  of  the  federal  Constitu- 
tion which  provides  that  "  no  religious  test  shall 
ever  be  required  as  a  qualification  for  any  office  or 
public  trust  under  the  United  States"  ;  as  well  as 
of  the  First  Amendment,  to  the  effect  that  "  Con- 
gress shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment 
of  religion  or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof." 
These  acts  were  merely  part  of  a  general  policy, 
which  restricted  as  far  as  possible  the  functions  of 
the  federal  government,  and  left  to  the  several 
States  as  much  of  their  separate  sovereignty  as  was 
consistent  with  the  existence  of  the  national  Union. 

This  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  federal 
Constitution  placed  no  restriction  upon  the  legis- 
lation of  the  different  States  in  matters  of  religion, 


2  2  TJic  Catholic  Church  iti 

leaving  them  free  to  pursue  the  intolerant  and  per- 
secuting policy  of  tlie  colonial  era  ;  and,  indeed, 
laws  for  the  support  of  public  worship  lingered  in 
Connecticut  till  l8i6  and  in  Massachusetts  till  1833, 
and  anti-Catholic  religious  tests  were  introduced 
into  several  of  the  State  constitutions.  In  New 
York,  as  late  as  1806,  a  test-oath  excluded  Catholics 
from  office  ;  and  in  North  Carolina,  down  to  1836, 
only  those  who  were  willing  to  swear  to  belief  in 
the  truth  of  Protestantism  were  permitted  to  hope 
for  political  preferment.  New  Jersey  erased  the 
anti-Catholic  clause  from  her  constitution  only  in 
1844;  and  even  to-day,  unless  we  err,  the  written 
law  of  New  Hampshire  retains  the  test-oath.* 

The  law  which  denied  to  the  general  govern- 
ment all  right  of  interference  in  religious  matters 
was  a  political  necessity.  Any  attempt  to  intro- 
duce into  Congress  religious  discussions  would 
have  surely  rent  asunder  the  still  feeble  bands 
by  which  New  England  and  the  Southern  States 
were  held  together.  The  reasons  of  policy  which 
forbade  the  federal  government  to  meddle  with 
slavery  applied  with  tenfold  force  to  questions  of 
religion. 

The  First  Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  of 
which  we  Americans  are  so  fond  of  boasting,  was 
not,  therefore,  an  assertion  of  the  principle  of  tol- 
eration or  of  the  separation  of  church  and  state  ; 
it  was  merely  the  expression  of  the  will  of  the 
confederating   States   to    retain    their   pre-existing 

*  f  ince  this  was  written.  New  Hampshire  has  abrogated  the  law  which  ex- 
cUidcd  Catholics  from  office. 


the  United  States,  1776-1876.  23 

rights  of  control  over  religion,  which,  indeed,  they 
could  not  have  delegated  to  the  general  govern- 
ment without  imperilling  the  very  existence  of  the 
Union.  Nearly  all  the  leading  statesmen  of  that 
day  recognized  the  necessity  of  some  kind  of 
union  of  church  and  state,  and  their  views  were 
embodied  in  the  different  State  constitutions. 

The  year  before  the  first  battle  of  the  Revolution 
no  less  than  eighteen  Baptists  were  confined  in  one 
jail  in  Massachusetts  for  refusing  to  pay  ministerial 
rates  ;  and  yet  John  Adams  declared  "  that  a  change 
in  the  solar  system  might  be  expected  as  soon  as  a 
change  in  the  ecclesiastical  system  of  Massachu- 
setts" ;  and  at  a  much  later  period  Judge  Story 
was  able  to  affirm  that  "  it  yet  remained  a  problem 
to  be  solved  in  human  affairs  whether  any  free 
government  can  be  permanent  where  the  public 
worship  of  God  and  the  support  of  religion  con- 
stitute no  part  of  the  policy  or  duty  of  the 
state." 

There  is  no  foundation,  we  think,  for  the  opinion 
which  we  have  sometimes  heard  expressed,  that  the 
First  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  was  intended 
as  an  act  of  tardy  justice  to  the  Catholics  of  the 
United  States,  in  gratitude  for  their  conduct  during 
the  war  and  for  the  aid  of  Catholic  France.  It  in 
fact  made  no  change  in  the  position  of  the  Catho- 
lics, whom  it  left  to  the  mercy  of  the  different 
States,  precisely  as  they  had  been  in  the  colonial 
era.  Various  causes  were,  however,  at  work  which, 
by  modifying  the  attitude  of  the  States  towards 
religion,  tended  also  to  give  greater  freedom  to  the 


24  The  Catholic  Church  in 

Catholic  Church.  TIic  first  of  these  was  the  rise 
of  what  may  be  called  the  secular  theory  of  gov- 
ernment, whose  great  exponent,  Thomas  Jefferson, 
had  received  his  political  opinions  from  the  French 
philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  state, 
according  to  this  theory,  is  a  purely  political  organ- 
ism, and  is  not  in  any  way  concerned  with  religion  ; 
and  this  soon  came  to  be  the  prevailing  sentiment 
in  the  Democratic  party,  whose  acknowledged  lead- 
er Jefferson  was,  which  may  explain  why  the  great 
mass  of  the  Catholics  in  this  country  have  always 
voted  with  this  party.  Another  cause  that  tended 
to  bring  about  a  separation  of  church  and  state 
was  the  rapidly-increasing  number  of  sects,  which 
rendered  religious  legislation  more  and  more  diffi- 
cult, especially  as  several  of  these  were  opposed 
to  any  recognition  of  religion  by  the  civil  power. 
And  to  this  we  may  add  the  growing  religious 
indifference  which  caused  large  numbers  of  Ameri- 
cans to  fall  away  from,  or  to  be  brought  up  outside 
of,  all  ecclesiastical  organization.  The  desire,  too, 
to  encourage  immigration — which  sprang  from  in- 
terested motives,  and  also  from  a  feeling,  very 
powerful  in  the  United  States  half  a  century  ago, 
that  this  country  is  the  refuge  of  all  who  are 
oppressed  by  the  European  tyrannies — predisposed 
Americans  to  look  favorably  upon  the  largest  tol- 
eration of  religious  belief  and  practice.  There  is 
no  question,  then,  but  the  Catholics  of  this  country 
owe  the  freedom  which  they  now  enjoy  to  the 
operation  of  general  laws,  the  necessary  results  of 
given  social  conditions,  and  not  at  all  to  the  good- 


the  United  States.  1776-1876, 


-:) 


will  or  tolerant  temper  of  American  Protestants. 
Let  us,  however,  be  grateful  for  the  boon,  whence- 
soever  derived.  At  the  close  of  the  war  which 
secured  our  national  independence  and  created  the 
republic  the  Catholic  Church  found  herself,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  unfettered  and  free  to  enter 
upon  a  field  which  to  her,  we  may  say,  was  new. 
At  that  time  there  were  in  the  whole  country  not 
more  than  forty  thousand  Catholics  and  twenty- 
five  priests.  In  all  the  Tsmd  there  was  not  a  convent 
or  a  religious  community.  There  was  not  a  Catho- 
lic school  ;  there  was  no  bishop  ;  the  sacraments  of 
confirmation  and  of  Holy  Orders  had  never  been 
administered.  The  church  was  without  organiza- 
tion, having  for  several  years  had  no  intercourse 
with  its  immediate  head,  the  vicar-apostolic  of 
London  ;  it  was  without  property,  with  the  ex- 
ftption  of  some  land  in  Maryland,  which,  through 
a  variety  of  contrivances,  had  been  saved  from  the 
rapacity  of  the  colonial  persecutors  ;  and,  sur- 
rounded by  a  bigoted  Protestant  population,  igno- 
rant of  all  the  Catholic  glories  of  the  past,  it  was 
also  without  honor.  But  faith  and  hope,  which 
with  liberty  ought  to  make  all  things  possible,  had 
not  fled,  and  soon  the  budding  promise  of  the 
future  harvest  lifted  its  timid  head  beneath  the 
genial  sun  of  a  brighter  heaven.  The  priests  of 
Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  addressed  a  letter  to 
Pius  VI.,  praying  him  to  appoint  a  prefect-aposto- 
lic to  preside  over  the  church  in  the  United  States; 
and  as  the  Holy  See  was  already  deliberating  upon 
a  step  of  this  kind,  Father  Carroll  was  made  supe- 
3 


26  'J he  Catholic  Church  in 

rior  of  the  American  clergy,  with  power  to  admin- 
ister the  sacrament  of  confirmation.  This  was  in 
1784. 

The  priests,  who  at  this  time,  for  fear  of  wound- 
ing Protestant  susceptibiHties,  thought  it  inexpe- 
dient to  ask  for  a  bishop,  were  now,  after  longer 
deliberation,  persuaded  that  in  this  they  had  erred, 
and  they  therefore  named  a  committee  to  present  a 
petition  to  Rome,  praying  for  the  erection  of  an 
episcopal  see  in  the  United  States.  The  Holy 
Father  having  signified  his  willingness  to  accede  to 
this  proposition,  and  it  having  been  ascertained, 
too,  that  the  government  of  this  country  would 
make  no  objection,  they  at  once  fixed  upon  Balti- 
more as  the  most  suitable  location  for  the  new  sec, 
and  presented  the  name  of  Father  Carroll  as  the 
most  worthy  to  be  its  first  occupant.  The  papal 
bulls  were  dated  November  6,  1789,  and  upon  theft 
reception  Father  Carroll  sailed  for  England,  where 
he  was  consecrated  on  the  15th  of  August,  the 
Feast  of  the  Assumption,  1790. 

Events  were  just  then  taking  place  in  France 
which  w^ere  of  great  moment  to  the  young  church 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  The 
French  Revolution  was  getting  ready  to  guillotine 
priests  and  to  turn  churches  into  barracks;  and  M. 
Emery,  the  Superior-General  of  the  Order  of  Saint 
Sulpice,  who  was  as  far-seeing  as  he  was  fearless, 
entered  into  correspondence  with  Bishop  Carroll,  in 
England,  with  a  view  to  open  an  ecclesiastical 
seminary  in  the  United  States.  The  offer  was 
gladly  accepted,   and  the  year  following  (1791)  M. 


the  I  'nitcd  States,  1776-1876.  27 

Nagot  organized  the  Theological  Seminary  of  Bal- 
timore, and  in  the  same  year  the  first  Catholic 
college  in  the  United  States  was  opened  at  George- 
town, in  the  District  of  Columbia.  In  1790  Father 
Charles  Neale  brought  from  Antwerp  a  community 
of  Carmelite  nuns,  who  established  themselves  near 
Port  Tobacco,  in  Southern  Maryland.  This  was 
the  first  convent  of  religious  women  founded  in  the 
United  States,  the  house  of  Ursuline  nuns  in  New 
Orleans  having  come  into  existence  while  Louisiana 
was  still  a  Fi*ench  colony.  A  few  years  later  a 
number  of  religious  ladies  adopted  the  rule  of  the 
Order  of  the  Visitation  and  organized  a  convent  in 
Georgetown;  and  in  1809  Mother  Seton  founded 
near  Emmittsburg,  in  Maryland,  the  first  commu- 
nity of  Sisters  of  Charity  in  this  country,  just  one 
year  after  Father  Dubois,  the  future  Bishop  of 
New  York,  had  opened  Mt.  St.  Mary's  College. 
In  1805  Bishop  Carroll  reorganized  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  and  in  1806  the  Dominicans  founded  their 
first  convent  in  the  United  States,  at  St.  Rose,  in 
Kentucky.  Two  years  later  episcopal  sees  were 
established  at  New  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  and 
Bardstown,  with  an  archiepiscopal  centre  at  Bal- 
timore. 

In  this  way  the  church  was  preparing,  as  far  as 
the  slender  means  at  her  command  would  permit, 
to  receive  and  care  for  the  vast  multitudes  of  Catho- 
lics who  began  to  seek  refuge  in  the  United  States 
from  the  persecutions  and  oppressions  of  the  British 
and  other  European  governments.  But  her  re- 
sources were  not  equal  to  the  urgency  and  magni- 


28  The  CatJiolic  CJiurcJi  in 

tude  of  the  occasion,  and  her  history  during  the 
lialf-century  immediately  following  the  close  of 
the  Revolutionary  war,  though  full  of  examples  of 
courage,  zeal,  and  energy,  shows  her  in  the  throes 
of  a  struggle  which,  whether  it  were  for  life  or 
death,  seemed  doubtful. 

Like  an  invading  army,  her  children  poured  in  a 
ceaseless  stream  into  the  enemy's  country,  and,  ar- 
rived upon  the  scene  of  action,  they  found  them- 
selves without  leaders,  without  provisions,  without 
means  of  defence  or  weapons  of  heavenly  warfare. 
Far  from  their  spiritual  guides,  in  a  strange  land, 
without  churches  or  schools,  the  very  air  of  this 
new  world  seemed  fatal  to  the  faith  of  the  early 
Catholic  immigrants ;  and  when,  yielding  to  the 
rigors  of  the  climate  or  the  hardships  of  frontier 
life,  they  died  in  great  numbers,  their  orphan  chil- 
dren fell  into  the  hands  of  Protestants  and  were 
lost  to  the  church.  Their  descendants  to-day  are 
scattered  from  Maine  to  Florida,  from  New  York  to 
California. 

Bishop  England,  though  inclined  to  exaggerate 
the  losses  of  the  church  in  this  country,  was  cer- 
tainly not  mistaken  in  holding  that  during  the 
period  of  which  we  speak,  though  there  was  an 
increase  of  congregations,  there  was  yet  a  great 
falling  away  of  Catholics  from  the  faith  in  the 
United  States. 

Unfortunately,  the  want  of  priests  and  churches 
cannot  with  truth  be  said  to  have  been  the  greatest 
evil,  especially  in  the  early  years  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  hierarchy.     A  spirit  of  insubordination 


/// c  Un itcd  Sta /if j-,  1776-1876.  29 

existed  both  in  the  clergy  and  the  hiity.  "  Every 
day,"  wrote  Bishop  Carroll,  "  furnishes  me  with 
new  reflections,  and  almost  every  day  produces 
new  events  to  alarm  my  conscience  and  excite  fresh 
solicitude  at  the  prospect  before'me.  You  cannot 
conceive  the  trouble  which  I  suffi^r  already,  and  the 
still  greater  which  I  foresee  from  the  medley  of 
clerical  characters,  coming  from  different  quarters 
and  of  various  educations,  and  seeking  employment 
here.  I  cannot  avoid  employing  some  of  them, 
and  soon  they  begin  to  create  disturbances."  There 
were  troubles  and  scandals  in  nearly  all  the  larger 
cities,  which  in  some  instances  were  fomented  by 
the  priests  themselves.  The  trustee  system  was  a 
fruitful  cause  of  disturbance,  threatening  at  times 
to  bring  the  greatest  evils  upon  the  church  ;  espe- 
cially as  there  seemed  to  be  reason  to  fear  lest  the 
dissensions  between  the  clergy  and  the  laity  might 
serve  as  a  pretext  for  the  intermeddling  of  the  civil 
authority  in  ecclesiasFfcal  affairs.  Except  in  the 
two  or  three  colleges  of  which  we  have  spoken, 
there  was  no  Catholic  education  to  be  had  ;  and  for 
a  long  time  the  few  elementary  schools  which  were 
ofDened  were  of  a  very  wretched  kind.  Indeed,  we 
may  say  that  it  is  only  within  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century  that  many  of  the  bishops  and  priests  of  this 
country  have  come  to  realize  the  all-importance  of 
Catholic  education. 

Another  unavoidable  evil  was  the  mingling  of 
various  nationalities  in  the  same  church,  giving  rise 
to  jealousies,  and  frequently  to  dissensions  ;  and  to 
this  we   may  add   that   the   very  people  to  whom 


30  llie  CatJiolic  CJnirch  in 

above  all  others  the  church  in  this  country  is  in- 
debted for  its  progress  met  with  peculiar  difficulties 
in  the  fulfilment  of  their  God-given  mission.  This 
fact  did  not  escape  the  keen  eye  of  the  first  bishop 
of  Charleston. 

"  England,"  he  says,  "  has  unfortunately  too  Avell 
succeeded  in  linking  contumely  to  their  name  [the 
Irish]  in  all  her  colonies;  and  though  the  United 
States  have  cast  away  the  yoke  under  which  she 
held  them,  many  other  causes  have  combined  to 
continue  against  the  Irish  Catholic  more  or  less  to 
the  present  day  the  sneer  of  the  supercilious,  the 
contempt  of  the  conceited,  and  the  dull  prosing  of 
those  who  imagine  themselves  wise.  That  which 
more  than  a  century  of  fashion  has  made  habitual 
is  not  to  be  overcome  in  a  year;  and  to  any  Irish 
Catholic  who  has  dwelt  in  this  country  during  one- 
fourth  of  the  period  of  my  sojourn  it  will  be  pain- 
fully evident  that,  although  the  evil  is  slowly  dimin- 
ishing, its  influence  is  not  confined  to  the  American 
nor  to  the  anti-Catholic.  When  a  race  is  once 
degraded,  however  unjustly,  it  is  a  weakness  of  our 
nature  that,  however  we  may  be  identified  with 
them  upon  some  points,  we  are  desirous  of  showing 
that  the  similitude  is  not  complete.  You  may  be 
an  Irishman,  but  not  a  Catholic;  you  may  be  Ca- 
tholic, but  not  Irish.  It  is  clear  you  are  not  an 
Irish  Catholic  in  either  case  I  But  when  the  great 
majority  of  Catholics  in  the  United  States  were 
either  Irish  or  of  Irish  descent,  the  force  of  the 
prejudice  against  the  Irish  Catholic  bore  against 
the  Catholic  religion,  and  the  influence  of  this  pre- 


the  United  States,  1776-1876.  31 

judice  has  been  far  more  mischievous  than  is  gene- 
rally believed."  * 

We  must  not  omit  to  add  that  many  of  the  early 
missionaries  spoke  English  very  imperfectly  and 
were  but  little  acquainted  with  the  habits  and  cus- 
toms of  the  people  among  whom  they  were  called 
to  labor  ;  while  the  five  or  six  bishops  of  the  coun- 
try, separated  by  great  distances  from  their  priests, 
rarely  saw  them,  and  consequently  were  in  a  great 
measure  unable  to  control  or  direct  them  in  the 
exercise  of  the  sacred  ministry.  The  French  mis- 
sionaries, who  in  their  own  country  had  seen  the 
most  frightful  crimes  committed  in  the  name  of 
liberty  and  of  republicanism,  found  it  difficult  to 
sympathize  heartily  with  our  democratic  institu- 
tions; and  from  Ireland  very  few  priests  came, 
because  the  French  Revolution  had  broken  up  the 
Continental  Irish  seminaries  from  which  she  drew 
her  own  supplies. 

The  purchase  of  Louisiana  from  France  in  1803 
added  little  or  nothing  to  the  strength  of  the  church 
in  the  United  States,  since,  owing  to  the  wretched 
French  ecclesiastical  colonial  policy,  which  did  not 
permit  the  appointment  of  bishops,  the  Catholic 
population  of  that  province,  a  large  portion  of  whom 
were  negro  slaves,  had  been  almost  wholly  neg- 
lected. What  the  state  of  the  church  was  in  Florida 
at  tlie  time  of  its  cession  to  the  United  States  may 
be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  in  the  whole  province 
there  was  but  one  efficient  priest,  who  at  once  with- 
drew to  Cuba,  and  afterwards  to  Ireland,  his  native 

*  Bishop  England's  works,  vol.  iii.  p.  233. 


32  TJic  CatJiolic  Church  in 

country.  In  the  early  years  of  the  present  century 
Protestant  feeling  in  tiiis  country  was  much  more 
earnest  and  self-confident  than  at  present — in  the 
simple  days  of  camp-meetings  and  jerking  revivals 
and  childlike  faith  in  the  pope  as  Antichrist,  and 
in  priests  and  nuns  as  Satan's  chosen  agents  ;  when 
the  preachers  had  the  whole  world  of  anti-popery 
commonplace  wherein  to  disport  themselves  without 
fear  of  contradiction.  The  universal  feeling  of  pity 
for  those  who  doubted  the  supreme  wisdom  of  our 
political  institutions  was  bestowed  with  not  less 
boundless  liberality  upon  all  who  failed  to  perceive 
that  American  Protestantism  was  the  fine  essence 
and  final  outcome  of  all  that  is  best  and  purest  in 
religion.  Catholic  opinion,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
feeble,  unorganized,  and  thrown  back  upon  itself 
by  the  overwhelming  force  of  a  public  sentiment 
strong,  fresh,  and  defiant.  We  were,  moreovtr, 
still  under  the  ban  of  English  literature  that  for 
three  hundred  years  had  been  busy  travestying  the 
history  and  doctrines  of  the  church,  to  defend 
which  was  made  a  crime.  There  were  but  few 
Catholic  books,  and  those  to  be  had  generally  failed 
to  catch  the  phases  of  religious  thought  through 
which  American  Protestants  were  passing.  It  was 
more  than  thirty  years  after  the  erection  of  the  see 
of  Baltimore  that  the  Charleston  Miscellany,  which 
Archbishop  Hughes  called  the  first  really  Catholic 
newspaper  ever  published  in  this  country,  was 
founded  ;  and  fifty  years  after  the  consecration  of 
Bishop  Carroll  there  were  but  six  Catholic  journals 
in  the  United  States. 


the  Un ited  States,  177 6- 1876.  33 

Much  else  might  be  said  in  illustration  of  the 
difficulties  with  which  the  church  has  had  to  con- 
tend, and  of  the  obstacles  which  she  has  had  to 
overcome,  in  order  to  win  the  position  which  she 
now  occupies  in  the  great  American  republic. 
Enough,  however,  has  been  said  to  show  that  it 
would  be  difficult  to  imagine  surroundings  which, 
while  allowing  her  freedom  of  action,  would  be 
better  suited  to  test  her  strength  and  vitality. 

The  15  th  of  next  August  eighty  six  years  will 
have  passed  since  the  consecration  of  Bishop  Car- 
roll, and  to  this  period  the  organized  efforts  of  the 
church  to  secure  a  position  in  this  country  are  con- 
fined. The  work  then  begun  has  not  for  a  moment 
been  intermitted.  In  the  midst  of  losses,  defeats, 
persecutions,  anxieties,  doubts,  revilings,  calumnies, 
the  struggle  has  been  still  carried  on.  Each  year 
with  its  sorrows  brought  also  its  joys.  The  pro- 
gress, if  at  times  imperceptible,  was  yet  real.  When  ' 
in  the  early  synods  and  councils  of  Baltimore  were 
gathered  the  strong  and  true-hearted  bishops  and 
priests  who  have  now  gone  to  their  rest,  there  was 
doubtless  more  of  sadness  than  of  exultation  in 
their  words  as  they  spoke  of  their  scattered  and 
poorly-provided  flocks,  of  the  want  of  priests,  of 
churches,  of  schools,  of  asylums,  of  the  hardships 
of  missionary  life,  and  of  labors  that  seemed  in 
vain.  Still,  they  sowed  in  faith,  knowing  that  God 
it  is  who  gives  the  increase.  Eike  weary  travellers 
who  seem  to  make- no  headway,  by  looking  back 
they  saw  how  much  they  had  advanced.  New 
churches  were  built,  wzw  congregations  v/ere  formed, 
4 


34  ^/^^  Catholic  Church  in 

new  dioceses  were  organized.  On  some  mountain- 
side or  in  deep  Avooded  vale  a  cloister,  a  convent,  a 
college,  a  seminary  arose,  one  Iiardly  knew  how, 
and  yet  another  and  another,  until  these  retreats  of 
learning  and  virtue  dotted  the  land.  The  elements 
of  discord  and  disturbance  within  the  church  grew 
less  and  less  active,  the  relations  between  priest 
and  people  became  more  intimate  and  cordial,  the 
tone  of  Catholic  feeling  improved,  ecclesiastical 
discipline  was  strengthened,  and  the  self-respect 
of  the  Catholic  body  increased. 

The  danger,  which  at  one  time  may  have  seemed 
imminent,  of  the  estrangement  of  the  laity  from  the 
clergy,  disappeared  little  by  little,  and  to-day  in  no 
country  in  the  world  are  priest  and  people  more 
strongly  united  than  here.  With  the  more  thorough 
organization  of  dioceses  and  congregations  paro- 
chial schools  became  practicable,  and  the  great  pro- 
gress made  in  Catholic  elementary  education  is  one 
of  the  most  significant  and  reassuring  facts  con- 
nected with  the  history  of  the  church  in  the  United 
States.  The  number  of  pupils  in  our  parochial 
schools  was,  in  1873,  38o,ocxD,  and  to-day  it  is  pro- 
bably not  much  short  of  half  a  million,  which,  how- 
ever, is  even  less  than  half  of  the  Catholic  school 
population  of  the  entire  country.  But  the  work 
of  building  schools  is  still  progressing,  and  the  con- 
viction of  the  indispensable  necessity  of  religious 
education  is  growing  with  both  priests  and  people  ; 
so  that  we  may  confidently  hope  that  the  time  is 
not  very  remote  when  in  this  country  Catholic  chil- 
dren will  be  brought  up  only  in  Catholic  schools. 


the  United  States,  1 776-1876.  35 

By  establishing  protectories,  industrial  schools,  and 
asylums  we  are  growing  year  after  year  better  able 
to  provide  for  our  orphan  children. 

The  want  of  priests,  which  has  hitherto  been  one 
of  the  chief  obstacles  to  the  progress  of  the  church, 
is  now  felt  only  in  exceptional  cases  or  in  new  or 
thinly-settled  dioceses.  A  hundred  years  ago  there 
were  not  more  than  twenty-five  priests  in  the 
United  States  ;  in  1800  there  were  supposed  to  be 
forty;  in  1830  the  number  had  risen  to  two  hun- 
dred and  thirty-two,  and  in  1848  to  eight  hundred 
and  ninety.  In  ten  years,  from  1862  to  1872,  the 
number  of  priests  was  more  than  doubled,  having 
grown  from  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  seven- 
teen to  four  thousand  eight  hundred  and  nine.  The 
lack  of  vocations  to  the  priesthood  among  native 
Americans  was  formerly  a  subject  of  anxiety  and 
also  of  frequent  discussion  among  Catholics  in  this 
country;  but  now  it  is  generally  admitted,  we  think, 
that  if  proper  care  is  taken  in  the  education  and 
training  of  our  youths,  a  sufficient  number  of  them 
will  be  found  willing  to  devote  themselves  to  the 
holy  ministry. 

In  1875  there  were,  according  to  the  official  sta- 
tistics of  the  various  dioceses,  five  thousand  and 
seventy  four  priests,  twelve  hundred  and  seventy- 
three  ecclesiastical  students,  and  six  thousand  five 
hundred  and  twenty-eight  churches  and  chapels  in 
the  United  States.  There  were  also,  at  the  same 
time,  thirty-three  theological  seminaries,  sixty-three 
colleges,  five  hundred  and  ■  fifty-seven  academies 
and  select  schools,  sixteen  hundred  and  forty-five 


36  The  CatJiolic  Church  in 

parochial  schools,  two  hundred  and  fourteen  asy- 
lums, and  ninety-six  hospitals  under  the  authority 
and  control  of  the  Catholic  hierarchy  of  this 
country. 

One  hundred  years  ago  there  was  not  a  Catholic 
ecclesiastical  student,  or  theological  seminary,  or 
college,  or  academy,  or  parochial  school,  or  asylum, 
or  hospital  from  Maine  to  Georgia. 

Father  Badin,  the  first  person  who  ever  received 
Holy  Orders  in  the  United  States,  was  ordained  in 
the  old  cathedral  of  Baltimore  on  the  25th  of  May, 
1793,  just  eighty-three  years  ago.  It  is  now  eighty- 
six  years  since  Bishop  Carroll  was  consecrated,  and 
down  to  1808  he  remained  the  only  Catholic  bishop 
in  the  American  Church,  whose  hierarchy  is  com- 
posed at  present  of  one  cardinal,  ten  archbishops, 
forty-six  bishops,  and  eight  vicars-apostolic. 

In  1790  there  was  not  a  convent  in  the  United 
States;  in  i8cK)  there  were  but  two;  to-day  there 
are  more  than  three  hundred  and  fifty  for  women, 
and  there  are  probably  one  hundred  and  thirty  for 
men. 

We  may  be  permitted  to  refer  also  to  the  increase 
of  the  wealth  of  the  church  in  this  country,  espe- 
cially since  this  seems  to  be  the  cause  of  great 
uneasiness  to  the  faithful  and  unselfish  representa- 
tives of  the  sovereign  people.  The  value  of  the 
property  owned  by  the  church  in  this  country,  as 
given  in  the  census  reports,  was,  in  1850,  $9,256,- 
758;  in  i860,  $26,774,119;  and  in  1870,  $60,985,565. 
The  ratio  of  increase  from  1850  to  i860  was  189  per 
cent.,  and  from   i860  to  1870  128  percent.;  while 


the  United  States,  1 776-1876.  2>1 

the  aggregate  wealth  of  the  whole  country  during 
these  same  periods  increased  in  the  former  decade 
only  125  per  cent,  and  in  the  latter  only  86  per 
cent.  In  1850  the  value  of  the  church  property  of 
the  Baptists,  the  Episcopalians,  the  Methodists, 
and  the  Presbyterians  was  greater  than  that  of  the 
Catholics,  but  in  1870  we  had  taken  the  second 
rank  in  point  of  wealth,  and  to-day  we  think  there 
is  no  doubt  but  that  we  hold  the  first. 

"  Whatever  causes,"  says  Mr.  Abbott,  in  his  re- 
cent article  on  "  The  Catholic  Peril  in  America," 
"  may  have  contributed  to  this  significant  result,  it 
is  certain  that  among  the  chief  of  them  must  be 
reckoned  exemption  from  just  taxation,  extraordi- 
nary shrewdness  of  financial  management,  and  frau- 
dulent collusion  with  dishonest  politicians." 

Those  who  know  more  of  the  history  of  the 
church  in  this  country  than  can  be  learned  from 
statistical  reports,  or  articles  in  reviews,  or  cyclopae- 
dias are  aware  that  there  are  no  possessions  in  the 
United  States  more  honestly  acquired,  or  bought 
with  money  more  hardly  earned,  than  those  of  the 
Catholic  Church  ;  and  that  her  present  wealth, 
instead  of  being  due  to  special  financial  shrewdness, 
has  in  many  instances  been  got  in  spite  of  great 
and  frequent  financial  blundering ;  while  the  bi- 
shops and  priests  of  America,  with  here  and  there 
an  exception,  have  neither  had  nor  sought  to  have 
any  political  influence,  nor  would  they,  if  disposed 
to  meddle  with  partisan  politics,  meet  with  any 
encouragement  from  the  Catholic  people.  Their 
position  with  regard  to  the  question  of  education  is 


38  The  Catholic  Church  in 

the  result  of  purely  conscientious  and  religious 
motives  ;  and  while  claiming  for  Catholics  the 
right  to  give  to  their  children  the  benefit  of  religious 
training,  they  have  everywhere  and  repeatedly 
given  the  most  convincing  proofs  of  their  sincere 
desire  to  concede  to  all  others  the  fullest  liberty  in 
this  as  in  other  matters  ;  and  though  they  cannot 
approve  of  that  feature  in  the  common-school  sys- 
tem which  excludes  all  teaching  of  doctrinal  reli- 
gion, they  have  never  thought  of  pretending  that 
those  to  whom  it  does  commend  itself  should  not 
be  permitted  to  try  the  experiment  of  a  purely 
secular  education,  provided  they  respect  in  others 
the  freedom  of  conscience  which  is  now  a  part  of 
the  organic  law  of  the  land. 

With  very  few  exceptions,  Catholics  have,  through- 
out the  whole  country,  been  rigidly  excluded  from 
all  the  higher  political  offices  ;  though  now,  unfor- 
tunately, this  can  hardly  be  considered  a  grievance 
since  the  general  corruption  and  unworthiness  of 
public  life  have  caused  the  more  respectable  class 
of  American  citizens  to  shrink  from  the  coarseness 
and  vulgarity  of  our  partisan  contests.  On  the 
other  hand,  those  nominal  Catholics  who  acquire 
influence  in  what  is  called  "  ward  politics "  are 
generally  very  much  like  other  politicians,  eager  to 
serve  God  and  the  country  whenever  it  puts  money 
in  their  purse.  What  political  reasons  may  have 
determined  the  great  body  of  Catholic  voters  in 
this  country  to  prefer  the  Democratic  to  the  Whig, 
and  later  to  the  Republican,  party,  we  know  not ; 
but  we  are  very  sure  that  nothing  could  be  more 


the  United  States,  177 6- 1876,  39 

unfounded  than  to  imagine  that  the  welfare  or 
progress  of  the  church  can  in  any  way  be  connected 
with  the  success  of  Democratic  partisanism.  As  a 
religious  body  we  have  nothing  to  hope  from  either 
or  any  party.  We  ask  nothing  but  the  liberty 
which  with  us  is  considered  the  inalienable  heritage 
of  all  men  ;  and  for  the  rest,  we  know  that  a  politi- 
cian doing  a  good  deed  is  more  to  be  shunned  than 
an  enemy  plotting  evil. 

The  property  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the 
United  States  has  not  been  exempted  from  taxa- 
tion, except  under  general  laws  which  applied 
equally  to  that  of  all  other  religious  denominations  ; 
and  though  we  can  imagine  nothing  more  barbar- 
ous, more  hurtful  to  the  progress  of  the  national 
architecture  and  to  the  general  esthetic  culture  of 
the  people,  than  a  change  in  the  policy  which  has 
hitherto  prevailed,  not  in  this  country  alone,  but  in 
all  the  civilized  states  of  the  world,  nevertheless, 
if  those  who  hold  that  religion  has  no  social  value 
succeed  in  revolutionizing  legislation  on  this  sub- 
jectj  the  Catholics  will  not  be  less  prepared  than 
their  neighbors  to  abide  the  issue. 

A  more  interesting  study  than  the  wealth  of  the 
church  is  the  growth  of  the  Catholic  population  in 
the  United  States,  though,  in  the  absence  of  relia- 
ble or  complete  statistics  on  this  subject,  we  are 
not  able  to  give  an  entirely  satisfactory  or  exact 
statement  of  the  facts.  The  "  number  of  sittings," 
to  use  the  phrase  of  the  official  reports,  given  in  the 
United  States  Census,  is  of  scarcely  any  assistance 
in  determining  the  relicjious  statistics  of  the  coun- 


40  T/ie  Catholic  Church  in 

try.  The  number  of  Protestant  church  sittings,  for 
instance,  was  in  1870  19,674,548,  whereas  thp  mem- 
bership of  all  the  Protestant  sects  of  the  country 
was  only  about  7,000,000  ;  and  it  is  well  known 
that,  while  in  most  Protestant  churches  many  seats 
are  usually  unoccupied  during  religious  service,  in 
the  Catholic  churches  the  same  seat  is  frequently 
filled  by  three,  or  four,  or  even  five  different  per- 
sons, who  take  it  in  succession  at  the  various 
Masses. 

Ninety-one  years  ago  Father  Carroll  set  down  the 
Catholic  population  of  the  United  States  at  twenty- 
five  thousand,  and  he  may  have  fallen  short  of  the 
real  number  by  about  ten  thousand.  In  1808, 
when  episcopal  sees  were  placed  at  Boston,  *Kew 
York,  Philadelphia,  and  Bardstovvn,  the  Catholic 
population  had  increased  to  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand.  In  1832  Bishop  England  estimated 
the  Catholics  of  the  United  States  at  half  a  mil- 
lion ;  but  in  1836,  after  having  given  the  subject 
greater  attention,  he  thought  there  could  not  be 
less  than  a  million  and  a  quarter.  Both  these  esti- 
mates, however,  were  mere  surmises ;  for  Bishop 
England,  who  always  exaggerated  the  losses  of  the 
church  in  this  country,  not  finding  it  possible  to 
get  the  data  for  a  well-founded  opinion  as  to  the 
Catholic  population,  was  left  to  conjecture  or  to 
arguments  based  upon  premises  which,  to  say  the 
least,  were  themselves  unproven.  The  editors  of 
the  Metropolitan  Catholic  Almanac  for  1848,  basing 
their  calculations  upon  the  very  satisfactory  returns 
which  they  had  received  from  the  thirty  dioceses 


the  United  States,  1776-1876.  41 

then  existing  in  the  United  States,  set  down  our 
CathoHc  population  at  1,190,700,  and  this  is  proba- 
bly the  nearest  approach  which  we  can  make  to  the 
number  of  Catholics  in  this  country  at  the  time  the 
great  Irish  famine  gave  a  new  impulse  to  emigra- 
tion to  America.  From  1848  down  to  the  present 
day  the  increase  of  the  Catholic  population  has 
been  very  rapid,  it  having  risen  in  a  period  of 
twenty-eight  years  from  a  little  over  a  million  to 
nearly  seven  millions.  The  third  revised  edition 
of  Schem's  Statistics  of  the  World  for  1875  gives 
6,000,000  as  the  Catholic  population  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  America^i  Afinual  Cyclopcedia  for 
1875  reckons  it  as  more  than  6,000,000;  and  from  a 
careful  consideration  of  the  data,  which,  however, 
are  still  imperfect,  we  think  it  is  at  present  pro- 
b£^t>ly  not  less  than  7,000,000.  This  remarkable 
growth  of  the  church  during  the  last  thirty  years 
must  be  attributed  to  various  causes,  by  far  the 
most  important  of  which  is  beyond  all  doubt  the 
vast  immigration  from  Ireland  ;  to  which,  indeed, 
we  must  also  chiefly  ascribe  the  progress  of  the 
church  during  this  century  in  all  other  countries 
throughout  the  world  in  which  the  English  language 
is  spoken.  No  other  people  could  have  done  for  the 
Catholic  faith  in  the  United  States  what  the  Irish 
people  have  done.  Their  unalterable  attachment  to 
their  priests,  their  deep  Catholic  instincts,  which  no 
combination  of  circumstances  has  ever  been  able 
to  bring  into  conflict  with  their  love  of  country ; 
the  unworldly  and  spiritual  temper  of  the  national 
character;  their  indifference   to    ridicule    and   con- 


42  The  Catholic  Church  in 

tempt  ;  and  their  unfailing  generosity — all  fitted 
them  for  the  work  which  was  to  be  done  here,  and 
enabled  them,  in  spite  of  the  strong  preju<5ices 
against  their  race  which  Americans  had  inherited 
from  England,  to  accomplish  what  would  not  have 
been  accomplished  by  Italian,  French,  or  German 
Catholics.  Another  cause  of  the  more  rapid 
growth  of  the  church  during  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century  may  be  found  in  the  more  thorough  organ- 
ization of  dioceses,  congregations,  and  schools,  by 
which  we  are  better  able  to  shield  our  people  from 
unhealthy  influences,  and  thus  year  after  year  to  dim- 
inish our  losses  ;  while  the  increasing  number  of  con- 
verts to  the  faith  helps  to  swell  the  Catholic  ranks. 
Of  22,209  persons  who  were  confirmed  in  the  dio- 
cese of  Baltimore  from  1864  to  1868,  2,752,  or  more 
than  12  per  cent.,  were  converts;  and  our  convejets 
are  generally  from  the  more  intelligent  classes  of 
Americans.  The  efforts  to  arrest  the  progress  of 
the  church,  which  now  for  nearly  half  a  century 
have  assumed  a  kind  of  periodicity,  may  be  plac- 
ed among  the  causes  which  have  added  to  her 
strength.  These  attempts  are  made  in  open  viola- 
tion of  the  religious  and  political  principles  which 
are  the  special  boast  of  all  Americans,  and  the  only 
arguments  which  can  be  adduced  to  justify  them 
are  drawn  from  fear  or  hatred.  Whenever  we  have 
been  made  the  victims  of  lawlessness  or  fraud,  as 
in  the  burning  of  the  Charlestown  convent  and  the 
churches  of  Philadelphia,  or  in  the  spreading  "Aw- 
ful Disclosures  "  throughout  the  land,  the  sympa- 
thies of  generous  and  honest  men  have  been    at- 


the  Un ited  States,  177 6- 1876.  43 

tracted  to  us.  And  when  Protestant  bigotry  has 
made  an  alliance  with  a  political  party  in  order  to 
compass  our  ruin,  it  has  merely  succeeded  in  forc- 
ing the  opposing  party  to  take  up  throughout  the 
whole  country  the  defence  of  the  Catholics.  Thus 
during  the  brief  day  of  the  "  Know-nothing"  con- 
spiracy large  numbers  of  Protestants,  for  the  first 
time  since  the  Reformation,  were  led  to  examine 
into  the  history  of  the  church,  with  a  view  to  de- 
fend her  against  the  traditional  objections  of  Pro- 
testantismi  itself.  In  fact,  in  a  country  which  looks 
with  equally  tolerant  complacency  upon  every  form 
of  belief  or  unbelief  from  Atheism  to  Voodooism, 
from  the  Joss-House  of  the  Chinaman  to  the  Mor- 
mon Tabernacle  and  breeding  caravansary  of  free- 
love,  to  imagine  that  there  can  be  either  decent  or 
reasonable  motives  for  exciting  to  persecution  of 
the  Catholic  Church  is  sheer  madness  ;  nor  can  we 
think  it  less  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  good  sense 
and  justice  of  the  American  people  will  allow  them 
to  commit  themselves  to  a  policy  as  inconsistent  as 
it  would  be  outrageous. 

However  this  may  be,  there  can  be  no  doubt  but 
the  repeated  and  unprovoked  attacks  made  upon 
the  Catholics  of  the  United  States  by  fanatics  and 
demagogues  have  helped  to  increase  their  union 
and  earnestness  ;  and  this  leads  us  away  from  the 
growth  of  the  church  in  her  external  organization 
to  the  consideration  of  the  development  of  her 
spiritual  and  intellectual  life.  And  here  we  are  at 
once  struck  by  the  similarity  between  her  progress 
and  that  of  the  country  itself,  which  has  been  dif- 


44  The  Catholic  CJiurch  in 

fusive  at  the  expense  of  concentration  and  thor- 
oughness. Nevertheless,  no  attentive  observer  can 
fail  to  be  struck  by  the  intense  and  earnest  reh'gious 
spirit  by  which  the  great  body  of  the  Catholics  of 
the  United  States  are  animated,  as  well  as  the 
readiness  with  which  they  co-operate  with  their 
priests  in  promoting  the  interests  of  religion.  No- 
where do  we  find  greater  eagerness  for  instruction 
in  the  truths  of  the  faith,  or  greater  willingness  to 
make  sacrifices  in  order  to  give  to  the  young  a  re- 
ligious education,  than  among  the  Catholics  of  this 
country.  Our  priests  are,  as  a  body,  laborious, 
self-sacrificing,  and  disinterested,  and  are  honestly 
struggling  to  make  themselves  worthy  of  the  great 
mission  which  God  has  given  them  in  America. 

Our  position  in  this  country  hitherto  has  turned 
the  thoughts  of  our  best  minds  to  polemical  and 
controversial  writing,  which,  though  useful  and 
even  necessary,  has  only  a  temporary  value,  since 
it  is  addressed  primarily  to  objections  and  phases 
of  belief  which  owe  their  special  significance  to 
transitory  conditions  of  society  and  opinion.  Con- 
troversies between  Catholics  and  Protestants  which 
forty  years  ago  attracted  general  attention  and 
produced  considerable  impression,  woulcj  now  pass 
unnoticed  ;  for  the  simple  reason  that  Americans, 
in  the  confusion  of  sects  and  religious  opinions, 
have  come  to  realize  that  Protestantism  has  no 
doctrinal  basis,  and  is  left  to  trust  exclusively  to 
religious  sentiment.  Dogmatic  Protestantism  is 
of  the  past,  and  the  most  popular  preachers  are 
those  who  appeal  most  skilfully  to  the  religious  in- 


the  United  States,  1 776-1876.  45 

stincts  without  requiring  the  acceptance  of  any  re- 
ligious beliefs.  Most  of  our  best  writers  have  been 
men  whose  arduous  labors  left  them  but  little  time 
for  study  or  literary  composition,  and  their  works 
frequently  bear  the  marks  of  hasty  performance  ; 
but  they  will  nevertheless  not  suffer  from  compa- 
rison with  the  religious  writings  of  American  Protes- 
tants. The  ablest  man  who  has  devoted  himself 
to  the  discussion  of  religion  and  philosophy,  or  pro- 
bably any  other  subject,  in  the  United  States  during 
the  last  hundred  years  is  Dr.  Brownson,  all  of  whose 
best  thoughts  have  been  given  to  the  elucidation 
of  Catholic  truth  ;  and  though  there  was  something 
wanting  to  make  him  either  a  great  philosopher  or 
a  great  theologian,  or  even  a  perfect  master  of 
style,  we  know  of  no  other  American  of  whom  this 
may  not  also  be  justly  said  ;  unless,  perhaps,  we 
may  consider  Prescott,  Hawthorne,  or  Irving  worthy 
of  the  last  of  these  titles.  And  though  we  Catho- 
lics have  no  man  who  is  able  to  take  up  the  pen 
which  has  just  fallen  from  the  hand  of  Dr.  Brown- 
son,  none  who  have  the  power  which  once  belonged 
to  England  and  Hughes,  we  are  in  this  not  more  un- 
fortunate than  our  country,  which  no  longer  finds 
men  like  Adams  or  Jefferson  to  represent  not  un- 
worthily its  supreme  dignity  ;  nor  any  like  Web- 
ster, Clay,  or  Calhoun,  whose  minds  were  as  lofty 
as  their  honor  was  pure,  to  lend  the  authority  of 
wisdom  and  eloquence  to  the  deliberations  of  a 
great  people. 

During   the  hundred  years  of  our   independent 
life  the  external   development   of  the   church,  like 


46  ^     The  CatJiolic  Church  in 

that  of  the  nation,  has  been  so  rapid  that  all  indi- 
vidual energies  have  to  a  greater  or  less  degree 
been  drawn  to  help  on  this  growth.  Another  cen- 
tury, bringing  other  circumstances,  with  thenn  will 
bring  the  opportunity  and  the  duty  of  other  work. 
A  more  thorough  organization  must  be  given  to  our 
educational  system  ;  Catholic  universities  must  be 
created  which  in  time  will  grow  to  be  intellectual 
centres  in  which  the  best  minds  of  the  church  in 
this  country  may  receive  the  culture  and  training 
that  will  enable  them  to  work  in  harmony  for  the 
furtherance  of  Catholic  ends  ;  a  more  vigorous  and 
independent  press,  one  not  weakened  by  want  or 
depraved  by  human  respect  or  regard  for  persons, 
must  be  brought  into  existence.  We  must  pre- 
pare ourselves  to  enter  more  fully  into  the  public 
life  of  the  country  ;  to  throw  the  light  of  Catholic 
thought  upon  each  new  phase  of  opinion  or  belief 
as  it  rises  ;  to  grapple  more  effectively  with  the 
great  moral  evils  which  threaten  at  once  the  life  of 
the  nation  and  of  the  church.  All  this  and  much 
else  we  have  to  do,  if  our  God-given  mission  is  to 
be  fulfilled. 

And  now  we  will  crave  the  indulgence  of  our 
readers  while  we  conclude  with  a  brief  reference  to 
what  we  conceive  to  be  the  office  which  the  Catho- 
lic Church  is  destined  to  fulfil  in  behalf  of  the  Ame- 
rican state  and  civilization. 

De  Tocqueville,  in  his  thoughtful  and  singularly 
judicious  treatise  on  American  institutions,  makes 
the  following  very  just  remarks  : 

"  I   think  the  Catholic  religion  has  been  falsely 


the  United  States,  1776-1876.  47 

looked  upon  as  the  enemy  of  democracy.  On  the 
contrary,  Catholicism,  among  the  various  sects  of 
Christians,  seems  to  me  to  be  one  of  the  most  favor- 
able to  the  equality  of  social  conditions.  The  reli- 
gious community  in  the  Catholic  Church  is  com- 
posed of  but  two  elements — the  priest  and  the 
people.  The  priest  alone  is  lifted  above  his  flock, 
and  all  below  him  are  equals.  In  rriatters  of  doc- 
trine the  Catholic  faith  places  all  human  capacities 
upon  the  same  level ;  it  subjects  the  wise  and  the 
ignorant,  the  man  of  genius  and  the  vulgar  crowd, 
to  the  details  of  the  same  creed  ;  it  imposes  the 
same  observances  upon  the  rich  and  the  poor  ;  it 
inflicts  the  same  austerities  upon  the  powerful  and 
the  weak  ;  it  enters  into  no  compromise  with  mortal 
man,  but,  reducing  the  whole  human  race  to  the 
same  standard,  it  confounds  all  the  distinctions  of 
society  at  the  foot  of  the  same  altar,  even  as  they 
are  confounded  in  the  sight  of  God.  If  Catholicism 
predisposes  the  faithful  to  obedience,  it  certainly 
does  not  prepare  them  for  inequality;  but  the  con- 
trary may  be  said  of  Protestantism,  which  gene- 
rally tends  to  make  men  independent  more  than  to 
render  them  equal.  .  .  .  But  no  sooner  is  the  priest- 
hood entirely  separated  from  the  government,  as  is 
the  case  in  the  United  States,  than  it  is  found  that 
no  class  of  men  are  naturally  more  disposed  than 
the  Catholics  to  transfuse  the  doctrine  of  the  equal- 
ity of  conditions  into  political  institutions."  * 

The  generous   sentiments   which   two   centuries 
and   a  half  ago   led  the  Catholics  of  Maryland  to 

*  Demorracy  in  A  merica,  vol.  i.  p.  305. 


48  The  Catholic  Church  in 

become  the  pioneers  of  religious  liberty  in  the  New 
World,  are  still  warm  in  the  hearts  of  the  Catholic 
people  of  the  United  States.  We  have  even  here 
been  the  victims  of  persecution,  and  it  is  not  im- 
possible that  similar  trials  may  await  us  in  the 
future  ;  but  we  have  the  most  profound  conviction 
that,  even  though  we  should  grow  to  be  nine-tenths 
of  the  population  of  this  country,  we  shall  never 
prove  false  to  the  principle  of  religious  liberty, 
which,  to  the  Catholics  of  the  United  States,  at 
least,  is  sacred  and  inviolable.  For  our  own  part, 
we  should  turn  with  unutterable  loathing  from  the 
man  who  could  think  that  any  other  course  could 
ever  be  either  just  or  honorable. 

The  Catholics  of  this  republic  are  deeply  im- 
pressed with  the  inviolability  of  the  rights  of  the 
individual.  We  believe  that  the  man  is  more  than 
the  citizen  ;  that  when  the  state  tramples  upon  the 
divine  liberty  of  the  most  wretched  beggar,  the 
consciences  of  all  are  violated  :  that  it  is  its  duty 
to  govern  as  little  as  possible,  and  rather  to  suffer  a 
greater  good  to  go  undone  than  to  do  even  a  slight 
wrong  in  order  to  accomplish  it.  For  this  reason 
we  believe  that  when  the  state  assumed  the  right 
to  control  education,  it  took  the  first  step  away 
from  the  true  American  and  Christian  theory  of 
government  back  towards  the  old  pagan  doctrine 
of  state-absolutism.  Though  we  uphold  the  rights 
of  the  individual,  we  are  not  the  less  strong  in  our 
advocacy  of  the  claims  of  authority.  In  fact,  the 
almost  unbounded  individual  liberty  which  our 
American   social  and   political   order  allows  would 


the  Uitiied  States,  1 776-1876.  49 

fatally  lead  to  anarchy,  if  not  checked  by  some 
great  and  sacred  authority  ;  and  this  safeguard  can 
be  found  only  in  the  Catholic  Church,  which  is  the 
greatest  school  of  respect  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
The  church,  by  her  power  to  inspire  faith,  rever- 
ence, and  obedience,  will  introduce  into  our  na- 
tional life  and  character  elements  of  refinement  and 
culture  which  will  temper  the  harshness  and  reck- 
lessness of  our  republican  manners.  By  her  con- 
servative and  unitive  force  she  will  weld  into 
stronger  union  the  heterogeneous  populations  and 
widely-separated  parts  of  our  vast  country.  The 
Catholics  were  the  only  religious  body  in  the  United 
States  not  torn  asunder  by  sectional  strife  during 
our  civil  war,  and  we  are  persuaded  that,  as  our 
numbers  grow  and  our  influence  increases,  we  are 
destiwed  to  become  more  and  more  the  strong  bond 
to  hold  in  indissoluble  union  the  great  American 
family  of  States.  The  divisions  and  dissensions  of 
Protestantism  have  a  tendency  to  prepare  the  pub- 
lic mind  to  contemplate  without  alarm  or  indigna- 
tion like  divisions  and  dissensions  in  the  state  ;  and 
all  who  love  the  country  and  desire  that  it  remain 
one  and  united  for  ages  must  look  with  pleasure 
upon  the  growth  of  a  religion  which,  while  main- 
taining the  unity  of  its  own  world-wide  kingdom, 
inspires  those  who  are  guided  by  its  teachings  with 
a  horror  of  political  contention  and  discord. 
5 


THE  PERSECUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH  IN 
THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE.* 

HE  Catholics  are  suffering  to-day,  in  the 
very  heart  of  Europe,  a  persecution 
which,  if  less  bloody,  is  not  less  cruel 
or  unjust,  than  that  which  afflicted  the 
Christian  Church  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century,  under  the  reign  of  the  brutal  old  emperor, 
Diocletian.  The  prisons  of  Germany  are  filled  with 
confessors  of  the  faith,  who,  in  the  midst  of  every 
indignity  and  outrage,  bear  themselves  with  a  con- 
stancy and  heroism  not  unworthy  of  the  early 
martyrs.  And  it  is  strange,  too,  that  this  struggle 
should  be  only  a  renewal  of  the  old  conflict  between 
Christ  and  Caesar,  between  the  Son  of  Man  and  the 
prince  of  this  world.  In  fact,  anti-Christian  Europe 
is  using  every  exertion  to  re-create  society  on  the 
model  of  Grecian  and  Roman  paganism.  This  ten- 
dency is  manifest  in  all  the  various  realms  of  thought 
and  action. 

We  perceive  it — and  we  speak  now  more  particu- 
larly of  Germany — in  literature,  in  science,  in  the 
manner  of  dealing  with  all  the  great  problems  which 
concern  man  in  his  relations  with  both  the  visible 


*  Written  in  1373. 


PerseciUion  in  the  German  E^npirc.       5 1 

and  the  unseen  world  ;  and  it  looms  up  before  us, 
in  palpable  form  and  gigantic  proportions,  in  the 
whole  attitude  of  the  state  toward  the  church. 
There  has  never  lived  on  this  earth  a  more  thorough 
pagan  than  Goethe,  the  great  idol  of  German  litera- 
ture, to  whom  the  very  sign  of  the  cross  was  so 
hateful  that  in  his  notorious  Venetian  Epigram  he 
put  it  side  by  side  with  garlic  and  vermin.  The 
thought  of  self-sacrifice  and  self-denial  was  so  odious 
to  his  lustful  and  all-indulgent  nature  that  he  turned 
from  its  great  emblem  with  uncontrollable  disgust, 
and  openly  proclaimed  himself  a  "  decidirter  Nicht- 
christ."  "  Das  Ewig  Weibliche  " — sensualism  and 
sexualism — was  the  god  of  his  heart,  in  whose 
praise  alone  he  attuned  his  lyre.  And  Schiller,  in 
his  Gods  of  Greece,  complained  sorrowingly  that  all 
the  fair  world  of  gods  and  goddesses  should  have 
vanished,  that,  one  (the  God  of  the  Christian)  might 
be  enriched  ;  and  with  tender  longing  he  prayed 
that  "  nature's  sweet  morn  "  might  again  return. 

Both  the  religion  and  the  philosophy  of  pagan- 
ism were  based  upon  the  deification  of  nature,  and 
were  consequently  pantheistic.  Now,  this  pagan 
pantheism  recrudescent  is  the  one  permanent  type 
amid  the  endless  variations  of  modern  German 
sophistry.  It  underlies  the  theorizing  of  Schelling, 
Fichte,  and  Hegel,  as  well  as  that  of  Feuerbach, 
Biichner,  and  Strauss.  They  all  assume  the  non- 
existence of  a  personal  God,  and  transfer  his  attri- 
butes to  nature,  which  is,  in  their  eyes,  the  mother 
of  all,  the  sole  existence,  and  the  supreme  good, 
^his  pantheism,  which  confuses  all  things  \\\  extrir 


52  The  Persecution  of  the 

cable  chaos,  spirit  with  matter,  thought  with  sensa- 
tion, the  infinite  with  the  finite,  destroying  the 
very  elements  of  reason,  and  taking  from  language 
its  essential  meaning,  has  infected  all  non-Catholic 
thinking  in  Germany.  When  we  descend  from  the 
misty  heights  of  speculation,  we  find  pantheistic 
paganism  in  the  idolatry  of  science  and  culture, 
which  have  taken  the  place  of  dogma  and  morality. 
It  is  held  to  be  an  axiom  that  man  is  simply  a  pro- 
duct of  nature,  who  knows  herself  in  him  as  she 
feels  herself  in  the  animal. 

The  formulas  in  which  the  thought  is  clothed  are 
of  minor  importance.  In  the  ultimate  analysis  we 
find  in  all  the  conflicting  schools  of  German  infi- 
delity this  sentiment,  however  widely  its  expression 
may  vary  :  that  nature  is  supreme,  and  there  is  no 
God  beside.  The  cosmos,  instead  of  a  personal 
God,  is  the  ultimate  fact  beyond  which  science  pro- 
fesses to  be  unable  to  proceed  ;  and  therefore  the 
duality  of  ends,  aims,  and  results  which  underlies 
the  Christian  conception  of  the  universe  must 
necessarily  disappear.  There  is  no  longer  God  and 
the  world,  spirit  and  matter,  good  and  evil,  heaven 
and  hell  ;  there  is  not  even  man  and  the  brute. 
There  is  only  the  cosmos,  which  is  one ;  and  from 
this  it  necessarily  follows  that  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  spiritual  and  the  temporal  power  is  un- 
real and  should  cease  to  be  recognized. 

^Jow,  here  we  have  discovered  the  very  germ 
from  which  the  whole  Prussian  persecution  has 
sprung.  In  the  last  analysis  it  rests  upon  the  as- 
sumption that  the  spiritual  power  hc-^s  no  right  to 


Church  in  the  German  Empire.         53 

exist,  since  the  truths  upon  which  it  was  supposed 
to  be  based — as  God,  the  soul,  and  a  future  life — 
are  proven  to  be  myths.  Hence  the  state  is  the 
only  autonomy,  and  to  claim  authority  not  derived 
from  it  is  treason.  Thus  the  struggle  now  going  on 
in  Prussia  is  for  life  or  death.  It  rages  around  the 
very  central  citadel  of  the  soul  and  of  all  religion. 
The  Catholics  of  Germany  are  to-day  contending 
for  what  the  Christians  of  the  first  centuries  died — 
the  right  to  live.  To  understand  this  better  it  will 
be  well  to  consider  for  a  moment  the  attributes  of 
the  state  in  pagan  Greece  and  Rome. 

Hellenic  religion,  in  its  distinctive  forms,  had  its 
origin  in  the  deification  of  nature  and  of  man  as 
her  crowning  work,  and  both  were  identified  with 
the  state.  Hence  religion  was  hero-worship  ;  the 
good  man  was  the  good  citizen,  the  saint  was  the 
successful  warrior  who  struck  terror  into  the  ene- 
mies of  his  country,  and  thus  the  religious  feeling 
was  confounded  with  the  patriotic  spirit.  To  be  a 
true  citizen  of  the  state,  it  was  necessary  to  pro- 
fess the  national  religion  ;  and  to  be  loyal  to  the 
state  was  to  be  true  to  its  protecting  gods.  The 
highest  act  of  religion  was  to  beat  back  the  invader 
or  to  die  gloriously  on  the  battle-field.  Indeed,  in 
paganism  we  find  no  idea  of  a  non-national  religion. 
The  pagan  state,  whether  imperial,  monarchical,  or 
republican,  was  essentially  tyrannical,  wholly  in- 
compatible with  freedom  as  understood  in  Christian 
society.  To  be  free  was  to  be,  soul  and  body,  the 
slave  of  the  state.  Plato  gives  to  his  ideal  Republic 
unlimited  power  to  control  the  will   of  the   indivi- 


54  ^/^<^  Persecution  of  the 

dual,  to  direct  all  his  thoughts  and  actions,  to  model 
and  shape  his  whole  life.  He  merges  the  family 
and  its  privileges  into  the  state  and  its  rights,  gives 
the  government  absolute  authority  in  the  education 
of  its  subjects,  and  even  places  the  propagation  of 
the  race  under  state  supervision. 

The  pagan  state  was  also  essentially  military, 
recognizing  no  rights  except  those  which  it  had  not 
the  power  to  violate.  Now,  the  preaching  of  Christ 
was-  in  direct  contradiction  to  this  whole  theory  of 
government.  He  declared  that  God  and  the  soul 
have  rights  as  well  as  Caesar,  and  proclaimed  the 
higher  law  which  affirms  that  man  has  a  destiny 
superior  to  that  of  being  a  citizen  of  any  state, 
however  glorious ;  which  imposes  upon  him  duties 
that  transcend  the  sphere  of  all  human  authority. 
Thus  religion  became  the  supreme  law  of  life,  and 
the  recognition  of  the  indefeasible  rights  of  con- 
science gave  to  man  citizenship  in  a  kingdom  not 
of  this  world.  It,  in  consequence,  became  his  duty 
as  well  as  his  privilege  to  obey  first  the  laws  of  this 
supernatural  kingdom,  and  to  insist  upon  this 
divine  obligation,  even  though  the  whole  world 
should  oppose  him. 

This  teaching  of  Christ  at  once  lifted  religion 
above  the  control  of  the  state,  and,  cutting  loose 
the  bonds  of  servitude  which  had  made  it  national 
and  narrow,  declared  it  catholic,  of  the  whole  earth 
and  for  all  men.  He  sent  his  apostles,  not  to 
the  Jew,  or  the  Greek,  or  the  Gentile,  but  to 
all  the  nations,  and  in  his  church  he  recognized 
no  distinction    of    race    or    social    condition— the 


CJnirch  in  the  German  Empire.         55 

slave    was   like   the    freeman,  the  beggar  like    the 
king. 

This  doctrine,  the  most  beneficent  and  humani- 
tarian that  the  world  has  ever  heard,  brought  forth 
from  the  oblivion  of  ages  thd  all-forgotten  truth  of 
the  brotherhood  of  the  race,  and  raised  man  to  a 
level  on  which  paganism  was  not  able  even  to  con- 
template him ;  proclaiming  that  man,  for  being 
simply  man,  irrespective  of  race,  nationality,  or 
condition,  is  worthy  of  honor  and  reverence.  Now, 
it  was  precisely  this  catholic  and  non-national  cha- 
racter of  the  religion  of  Christ  which  brought  it 
into  conflict  with  the  pagan  state.  The  Christians, 
it  was  held,  could  not  be  loyal  citizens  of  the 
empire,  because  they  did  not  profess  the  religion 
of  the  empire,  and  refused  to  sacrifice  to  the  divinity 
of  Caesar.  They  were  traitors,  because  in  those 
things  which  concerned  faith  they  were  resolved 
not  to  recognize  on  the  part  of  the  state  any  right 
to  interfere  ;  and  therefore  were  they  cast  into 
prison,  thrown  to  the  wild  beasts  in  the  Amphithe- 
atre, and  devoured  under  the  approving  eyes  of  the 
worshippers  of  the  emperor's  divinity.  This  history 
is  repeating  itself  in  Prussia  to-day. 

Many  causes  have,  within  the  present  century, 
helped  to  strengthen  the  national  feeling  in  Ger- 
many. The  terrible  outrages  and  humiliations  in- 
flicted upon  her  by  the  pitiless  soldiers  of  the  first 
Napoleon  made  it  evident  that  the  common  safety 
required  that  the  bonds  of  brotherhood  among  the 
peoples  of  the  different  German  states  should  be 
drawn    tighter.      The   development    of  a    national 


56  The  Persecution  of  the 

literature  also  helped  to  foster  a  longing  for  national 
unity.  In  the  seventeenth,  and  even  down  to 
nearly  the  end  of  the  eighteenth,  century,  French 
influence,  extending  from  the  courts  of  princes  to 
the  closets  of  the  learned,  gave  tone  to  both  litera- 
ture and  politics. 

Leibnitz  wrote  in  French  or  Latin,  and  Freder- 
ick the  Great  strove  to  forget  his  own  tongue,  that 
he  might  learn  to  speak  French  with  idioma- 
tic purity — an  accomplishment  which  he  never  ac- 
quired. 

As  there  was  no  German  literature,  the  national 
feeling  lacked  one  of  its  most  powerful  stimulants. 
But  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth,  a  literature 
rich,  profound,  thoroughly  German,  the  creation  of 
some  of  the  highest  names  in  the  world  of  letters, 
came  into  existence,  and  was  both  a  cause  and  an 
effect  of  the  national  awakening.  Goethe  especial- 
ly did  much,  by  the  absolute  ascendency  which  he 
acquired  in  the  literature  of  his  country,  to  unify 
and  harmonize  the  national  mind. 

Still,  a  thousand  interests  and  jealousies,  local 
and  dynastic,  old  prescriptive  rights,  and  a  constitu- 
tional slowness  and  sluggishness  in  the  Germanic 
temperament,  stood  in  the  way  of  a  united  father- 
land, and  had  to  be  got  rid  of  or  overcome  by  force 
before  the  dream  of  the  nationalists  could  become  a 
reality. 

Prussia,  founded  by  rapine,  built  up  and  strength- 
ened by  war  and  conquest,  has  always  been  a  heart- 
less, self-seeking  state.     The  youngest  of  the  great 


Church  hi  the  German  Empire.  57 

European  states,  and  for  a  long  time  one  of  the 
most  inconsiderable,  she  has  gradually  grown  to  be 
the  first  military  power  of  the  world.  Already,  in 
the  time  of  Frederick  the  Great,  she  was  the  formid- 
able rival  of  Austria  in  the  contest  for  the  hege- 
mony of  the  other  German  states.  This  struggle 
ended,  in  1866,  in  the  utter  defeat  of  Austria  on 
the  field  of  Sadowa.  Hanover,  Saxony,  Hesse-Cas- 
sel,  and  other  minor  principalities  were  at  once  ab- 
sorbed by  Prussia,  who,  besides  greatly  increasing 
her  strength,  thus  became  the  champion  of  German 
unity.  But  German  unity  was  a  menace  to  France, 
who  could  not  possibly  maintain  her  preponderance 
in  European  affairs  in  the  presence  of  a  united  Ger- 
many. Hence  the  irrepressible  conflict  between 
France  and  Prussia,  which  ended  in  the  catastrophe 
of  Sedan. 

The  King  of  Prussia  became  the  Emperor  of 
Germany,  and  German  national  pride  and  enthusi- 
asm reached  a  degree  bordering  on  frenzy. 

By  a  remarkable  coincidence  the  Franco-Prussian 
war  broke  out  at  the  very  moment  when  the  dogma 
of  Papal  infallibility  was  defined,  and  immediately 
after  the  capitulation  of  Sedan,  Victor  Emanuel 
took  possession  of  Rome.  The  Pope  was  without 
temporal  power — a  prisoner  indeed.  The  feeling 
against  the  newly-defined  dogma  was  especially 
strong  in  Germany,  where  the  systematic  warfare 
carried  on  by  the  Janus  party  against  the  Vatican 
Council  had  warped  the  public  mind.  France,  the 
eldest  daughter  of  the  church,  was  lying,  bleeding 
and  crushed,  at  the  feet  of  the  conqueror.  The 
6 


58  The  Persecution  of  the 

time  seemed  to  have  arrived  when  the  bond  which 
united  the  Catholics  of  Germany  with  the  Pope, 
and  through  him  with  the  church  universal,  might 
easily  be  broken. 

The  defection  of  Dollinger  and  other  rationalis- 
tic  professors,  as  well  as  the  attitude  of  many  of 
the  German  bishops  in  the  council,  and  the  views 
which  they  had  expressed  with  regard  to  the  pro- 
bable results  of  a  definition  of  the  infallibility  of  the 
Pope,  tended  to  confirm  those  who  controlled  the 
policy  of  the  new  empire  in  the  opinion  that  there 
would  be  no  great  difficulty  in  forming  the  Catho- 
lics of  Germany  into  a  kind   of  national  religious 
body  wholly  subject  to  the  state,  even  in  matters 
of  faith.     If  we  add  to  this  the  fact  that  the  infidels 
of  our  day  have  a  kind  of  superstition  which  leads 
them  to  think  that  all  religious  faith   has   grown 
weak,  and  that  those  who  believe  are  for  the  most 
part  hypocritical,  insincere,  and  by  no  means  anx- 
ious to  suffer  for  conscience'  sake,  we  shall  be  able 
to  understand  how  Bismarck,  who  is  utterly  indiffer- 
ent to  all  religion,  and  who  believes  in  nothing  ex- 
cept the  omnipotence  of  the  state,  should  have  per- 
suaded himself  to    destroy  the   religious    freedom 
which  had  come  to  be  considered  the  common  pro- 
perty of  Christendom.     Already,  in  the  month  of 
August  immediately  following  the  close  of  the  war 
with  France,  we  find  the   Northern  German   press, 
which  obsequiously  obeys  his  orders,  beginning  to 
throw  out  hints  that  Rome  had  always  been   the 
enemy  of  Germany  ;  that   her  claims  were  incom- 
patible with  the  rights  of  the  state  and  hurtful  to 


Church  in  the  German  Empire.  59 

the  national  development ;  and  that,  in  presence  of 
the  newly-defined  dogma  of  Papal  infallibility,  the 
necessity  of  resisting  her  ever-increasing  encroach- 
ments upon  the  domain  of  the  civil  authority  had 
become  imperative.  The  watchword  given  by  the 
official  press  was  everywhere  re-echoed  by  the  or- 
gans of  both  infidel  and  Protestant  opinion,  and 
it  at  once  became  evident  that  the  German  Empire 
intended  to  make  war  on  the  Catholic  Church. 

There  was  yet  another  end  to  be  subserved 
by  the  persecution  of  the  church,  Bismarck  made 
no  secret  of  his  fears  of  a  democratic  movement  in 
Germany  after  the  excitement  of  the  French  cam- 
paign had  died  away,  and  he  hoped  to  avert  this 
danger  by  inflaming  the  religious  prejudices  of  the 
infidel  and  Protestant  population. 

On  the  8th  of  July,  1871,  the  Catholic  depart- 
ment in  the  Ministry  of  Public  Worship  was  abolish- 
ed, and  the  government  openly  lent  its  influence  to 
the  Old  Catholic  movement. 

The  Prussian  constitution  makes  religious  in- 
struction in  the  gymnasia  obligatory,  and  in  schools 
in  which  Catholic  doctrines  are  taught  the  govern- 
ment admits  that  only  persons  who  have  received 
the  approbation  of  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  are  to 
be  appointed  to  perform  this  duty.  Dr.  Wollmann, 
who  had  for  a  long  time  held  the  office  of  teacher 
of  religion  in  the  Catholic  gymnasium  of  Brauns- 
berg,  apostatized  after  the  Vatican  Council,  and 
was,  in  consequence,  suspended  from  the  exercise 
of  the  priestly  ofiice  by  his  bishop,  who  declared 
that,  since  Wollmann  had  left  the  church,  he  could 


6o  The  Persecution  of  the 

no  longer  be  considered  a  suitable  religious  instruc- 
tor of  Catholic  youth.  Von  Mlihler,  the  Minister 
of  Public  Worship,  refused  to  remove  Wollmann  ; 
and  since  religious  instruction  is  compulsory,  the 
pupils  who  could  not  in  conscience  attend  his 
classes  were  forced  to  leave  the  school. 

This  act  of  Von  Miihler  was  in  open  violation  of 
the  Prussian  constitution,  which  expressly  recog- 
nized in  the  Catholic  Church  the  right  of  directing 
the  religious  instruction  of  its  members. 

To  require  that  Catholics  should  send  their  chil- 
dren to  the  lessons  of  an  excommunicated  priest 
was  to  trample  upon  the  most  sacred  rights  of  con- 
science. By  declaring,  as  in  this  case,  that  those 
who  rejected  the  dogma  of  infallibility  were  true 
Catholics,  the  German  government  plainly  showed 
that  it  intended  to  assume  the  competency  of 
deciding  in  all  matters  of  faith,  and  consequently 
to  wholly  ignore  the  existence  of  any  religious  au- 
thority distinct  from  that  of  the  state. 

Bismarck's  next  step  was  not  less  arbitrary  or 
tyrannical.  He  proposed  to  the  Federal  Council 
and  Reichstag  a  law  against  what  was  termed  the 
abuse  of  the  pulpit,  by  which  the  office  of  preach- 
ing should  be  placed  under  the  supervision  of  the 
police. 

This  law,  which  was  passed  by  a  feeble  majority, 
was  simply  a  renewal  of  the  attempt  to  suppress 
Christianity  made  by  the  Jewish  Council  in  Jerusa- 
lem when  the  apostles  dared  to  preach  in  the  name 
of  Jesus,  without  asking  permission  of  the  rulers  of 
the  people  :  "  But  that  it  may  be  no  further  spread 


Church  in  the  German  Empire.         6i 

among  the  people,  let  us  threaten  them,  that  they 
speak  no  more  in  this  name  to  any  man.  And 
calling  them,  they  charged  them  not  to  speak  at  all, 
nor  teach  in  the  name  of  Jesus  "  (Acts  iv.  17,  18). 

The  injustice  of  this  law  was  plainly  shown  by  the 
Saxon  member  of  the  Federal  Council,  who  pointed 
out  the  fact  that,  whilst  liberty  of  speech  was 
denied  to  Catholic  priests,  socialists  and  infidels 
were  permitted  every  day  to  attack  the  very  foun- 
dations of  all  government  and  civilization. 

This,  however,  is  but  the  necessary  consequence 
of  the  theory  of  the  state-God.  To  preach  in  the 
name  of  any  other  God  is  treason  ;  whereas  atheism 
is  the  correlative  of  the  omnipotence  of  the  govern- 
ment. That  the  present  tendency  in  Germany  is 
to  put  the  nation  in  the  place  of  God  is  expressly 
recognized  by  the  Allgenieine Evang.  Luth.  Kircheti- 
zdtnng,  which  is  the  organ  of  orthodox  Lutheran- 
ism.  These  are  its  words  :  "  For  the  dogmatic 
teaching  of  Christianity  they  hope  to  substitute  the 
national  element.  The  national  idea  will  form  the. 
germ  of  the  new  religion  of  the  empire.  We  have 
already  seen  the  emblems  which  foreshadow  the 
manner  in  which  this  new  worship  is  to  be  organ- 
ized. Instead  of  the  Christian  festivals,  they  will 
celebrate  the  national  memories,  and  will  call  to  the 
churches  the  masses  to  whom  the  road  is  no  longer 
known.  Have,  we  not  seen,  on  the  anniversaiy 
of  Sedan,  the  eidolon  of  the  emperor  placed  upon 
the  altar,  whilst  the  pulpit  was  surrounded  with  the 
busts  of  the  heroes  of  the  war? 

"During  eight   days  they  wove   crowns  of  oak- 


62  The  Persecution  of  the 

leaves  and  the  church  was  filled  ;  whilst  out  of  ten 
thousand  parishioners,  scarcely  a  dozen  can  be  got 
together  to  listen  to  the  word  of  God.  Such  is  the 
religion  of  the  future  church  of  the  empire.  Little 
more  is  needed  to  revive  the  ancient  worship  of  the 
Roman  emperors  ;  and  if  the  history  of  Germany  is 
to  be  reduced  to  tliis  duel  between  the  church  of 
the  emperor  and  that  of  the  Pope,  we  must  see 
on  which  side  the  Lutherans  will  stand." 

The  next  attack  on  the  church  was  made  under 
cover  of  an  enactment  on  the  inspection  of  public 
schools,  A  project  of  law  was  presented  to  the 
House  of  Deputies,  excluding  all  priests  from  the 
inspection  of  schools,  and  at  the  same  time  oblig- 
ing them  to  undertake  this  office  whenever  asked 
to  do  so  by  the  state  authorities.  This  latter  clause 
was,  however,  so  openly  unjust  that  it  was  rejected 
by  the  House.  But  the  law,  even  as  it  stands,  is 
a  virtual  denial  that  Catholic  schools  have  any  right 
to  exist  at  all,  and  is  an  evidence  that  the  German 
Empire  intends  to  destroy  Christian  faith  by  estab- 
lishing an  atheistic  system  of  popular  education. 

And  now  war  was  declared  against  the  Jesuits. 
The  Congress  of  the  Old  Catholics,  which  met  at 
Munich  in  September,  1871,  had  passed  violent  re- 
solutions against  the  order  ;  and  later  the  Old  Ca- 
tholic Committee  at  Cologne  presented  a  petition 
of  similar  import  to  the  imperial  Parliament. 

The  debate  was  opened  in  the  month  of  May, 
1872.  A  project  of  law,  restricting  the  liberties  of 
religious  orders,  and  especially  directed  against  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  was  brought  before  the  Federal 


CJntrch  in  the  Germmz  Emph-e'.         6 


3 


Council  and  accepted  by  a  large  majority.  Wheu 
it  came  before  the  imperial  Parliament,  amendments 
were  added  rendering  it  still  more  harsh  and  tyran- 
nical. The  order  was  to  be  shut  out  from  the 
empire,  its  houses  to  be  closed,  foreign  Jesuits  were 
to  be  expelled,  and  the  German  members  of  the 
society  were  to  be  confined  to  certain  districts ;  and 
the  execution  of  these  measures  was  to  be  entrusted 
to  the  Federal  Council. 

On  the  4th  of  July  the  law  received  the  approval 
of  the  emperor,  and  on  the  5th  it  was  promulgated. 
Thus  in  the  most  arbitrary  manner,  without  any 
legal  proceedings,  hundreds  of  German  citizens, 
against  whom  there  was  not  the  slightest  proof  of 
guilt,  were  deprived  of  their  rights  and  expelled 
from  their  country.  Besides,  the  measure  was 
based  upon  the  most  ignorant  misconception  of  the 
real  condition  of  the  church,  and  was  therefore 
necessarily  ineffective.  The  religious  orders  and 
the  secular  priesthood  do  not  represent  opposite 
tendencies  in  the  church  ;  their  aims  are  identical, 
and,  in  our  day  at  least,  the  secular  priests  are  as 
zealous,  as  active,  and  as  efficient  as  the  members 
of  the  religious  orders. 

What  end,  then,  was  to  be  gained  by  expelling 
the  Jesuits,  whilst  devoted  and  zealous  priests  were 
left  to  minister  to  the  Catholic  people,  whose  faith 
had  been  roused  by  this  scandalous  persecution  of 
men  whom  they  knew  to  be  guilty  of  no  crime 
except  that  of  loving  Jesus  Christ  and  his  church  ? 
The  blow  struck  at  the  Jesuits  was,  in  truth,  aimed 
at  the  church,  and  this  the  bishops,  priests,  and 


64  The  Persecution  of  the 

entire  Catholic  people  of  Germany  at  once  recog- 
nized. They  saw  now,  ^nce  even  the  possibility 
of  doubting  was  no  longer  left  to  them,  that 
the  German  Empire  had  declared  war  on  the 
church;  and  Bismarck,  seeing  that  his  half-way 
measures  had  deceived  no  one,  resolved  to  adopt  a 
policy  of  open  violence.  With  this  view  a  new 
minister  of  Public  Worship  was  appointed  in  the 
person  of  Dr.  Falk,  who  drew  up  the  plan  of  the 
famous  Four  Church  Laws  to  which  he  has  given 
his  name,  and  which  was  adopted  on  the  nth  of 
May,  1873. 

In  virtue  of  these  laws — which  it  is  unnecessary 
to  transcribe  in  full — the  state  arrogates  the  right 
of  appointing  to  all  ecclesiastical  offices,  since  the 
government  claims  authority  to  approve  or  annul 
all  nominations  made  by  the  bishops ;  and  the  Pre- 
sident of  the  Province  {Obcrpraesidcnt)  is  bound  to 
interdict  the  exercise  of  any  religious  function  to 
ecclesiastics  appointed  without  his  consent.  The 
bishop  who  makes  an  appointment  to  the  cure  of 
souls  without  the  consent  of  the  civil  authority  is 
fined  from  two  hundred  to  one  thousand  thalers ; 
and  the  priest  who,  appointed  in  this  way,  exercises 
spiritual  functions,  is  visited  with  a  proportionate 
penalty.  This  is  an  attempt  to  change  the  very 
nature  of  the  church  ;  it  is  a  denial  of  its  right 
to  exist  at  all. 

The  third  of  these  laws  creates  the  "  Royal  Court 
of  Justice  for  Ecclesiastical  Affairs,"  which  claims 
and  possesses  by  act  of  Parliament  the  right  to 
reform  all  disciplinary  decisions  made  by  the  bishops 


Church  ill  the  German  Empire.         65 

in  relation  to  the  ecclesiastics  under  their  jurisdic- 
tion. Tiiis  same  court  has  by  law  the  right  to 
depose  any  ecclesiastic  whose  conduct  the  govern- 
ment may  see  fit  to  consider  incompatible  tvith 
public  order. 

The  Pope  is  interdicted  from  the  exercise  of  dis- 
ciplinary power  within  the  territory  of  the  Prussian 
monarchy. 

The  state  takes  control  of  the  education  of  the 
young  men  destined  to  the  priesthood.  It  requires 
them  to  pass  the  arbiturieiiten-examcn  in  a  German 
gymnasium,  and  then  to  devote  three  years  to  the 
study  of  theology  in  a  German  university,  during 
which  time  they  are  not  to  be  permitted  to  live  in 
an  episcopal  seminary  ;  and  thereafter  they  are  to 
pass  a'public  examination  before  the  state  officials. 
All  educational  establishments  for  the  clergy,  espe- 
cially all  kinds  of  seminaries,  are  placed  under  the 
superintendence  of  the  government,  and  those  which 
are  withheld  from  this  supervision  are  to  be  closed. 
The  education  of  priests,  the  fitness  of  candidates 
for  holy  orders,  appointments  to  the  cure  of  souls, 
the  infliction  of  ecclesiastical  censures,  the  sound- 
ness of  the  faith  of  the  clergy,  are,  in  the  new 
German  Empire,  matters  to  be  regulated  by  the 
police. 

This  is  not  a  struggle  between  Catholicity  and 
Protestantism  ;  it  is  a  battle  between  the  Atheist 
State  and  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  Protestant 
Church  in  Germany  does  not  alarm  Bismarck,  be- 
cause it  is  feeble  and  has  no  independent  organiza- 
tion, since  its  ministers  are  appointed  and  ruled  by 


66  The  Persecution  of  the 

the  emperor,  and   it  is  also   well   understood   that 
very  few  of  them  have  any  faith  in  positive  religion. 
But  the  orthodox  Protestants  of  Germany  thor- 
oughly understand  that  the  attempt  to  crush  the 
Catholic  Church  is  meant  to  be  a  fatal  blow  at  the 
vital  principle  of  all  religion.     This  is  recognized 
by  the  Allgevteine  Evaiig.  Liitli.  Kirchcnzeitung  in 
the  article   from  which  we   have    already  quoted. 
"  It  is  a  common  remark,"  says  this  organ  of  ortho- 
dox Lutheranism,   "  that  the  blows  struck  at  the 
Church    of   Rome   will   tell    with    redoubled  force 
against  the  evangelical  church.     But  what  is  meant 
to  injure,  only  helps  the   Roman   Church.     There 
she  stands,  more  compact  than  ever,  and.  the  world 
is  amazed  at  beholding  her  strength.      Once  the 
word  of  the  Monk  of  Wittenberg  made  her  tremble, 
but  to-day  the  blows  of  power  make  her  stronger. 
Let  us  beware  of  illusion  ;  it  is  certain  that  in  the 
Protestant  North  of  Germany  there  has  grown  up 
a  public  opinion  on  the   Church  of  Rome  which 
provokes  the  respect  even  of  the  liberals.     We  have 
enough  to  do,  they  say,  to  fight  the  socialists ;  it  is 
time  to  leave  the  Catholic  bishops  in  peace." 

In  the  spring  of  1870,  whilst  the  discussion  con- 
cerning the  opportuneness  of  defining  the  infallibili- 
ty of  the  Pope  was  attracting  the  attention  of  every 
one,  and  when  the  distant  mutterings  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war  were  not  yet  audible,  the  leading  or- 
gans of  the  Party  of  Progress  in  Berlin  sought  to 
weigh  the  probable  results  of  a  definition,  by  the 
Vatican  Council,  of  the  much-talked-of  dogma.  In 
case    the    Pope    should  be  declared    infallible,  the 


CInirch  in  the  German  Empire.         67 

VolkszeiUing^  of  Berlin,  affirmed  that  many  would 
favor  the  interference  of  the  government  to  prevent 
all  further  intercourse  between  the  bishops  of  Prus- 
sia and  the  Roman  Pontiff,  which  would  result  in 
the  creation  of  a  national  church  wholly  independ- 
ent of  Rome. 

But  this  organ  of  the  Party  of  Progress  openly 
avowed  that  there  was  not  the  slightest  proba- 
bility that  the  state  could,  by  any  means  at  its  com- 
mand, succeed  in  separating  the  Catholic  Church 
in  Prussia  from  communion  with  the  See  of  Peter ; 
nor  was  there,  it  confessed  with  perfect  candor,  a 
single  bishop  in  Germany  who  would  desire  such  a 
separation. 

And  yet,  as  we  have  shown,  the  task  which  the 
German  Empire  has  set  itself  is  precisely  the  one 
which  is  here  pronounced  impossible.  We  will  re- 
turn now  to  the  history  of  the  tyrannical  enactments 
and  violent  measures  by  which  the  worshippers  of" 
the  God-State  hope  to  destroy  the  faith  of  thirteen 
millions  of  Catholics.  The  project  of  the  Falk  laws 
was  brought  before  the  Landtag  on  the  9th  of  Jarr- 
uary,  1873,  and  on  the  30th  of  the  same  month  the 
Catholic  episcopate  of  the  kingdom  of  Prussia  enter- 
ed a  solemn  protest  against  this  iniquitous  attempt 
to  violate  the  most  sacred  rights  of  conscience  and 
religion. 

In  the  name  of  the  natural  law,  of  the  historical 
and  legitimately-acquired  rights  of  the  church  in 
Germany,  of  the  treaties  concluded  by  the  crown  of 
Prussia  with  the  Holy  See,  and,  in  fine,  in  the  name 
of    the    express    recognition    of    these    rights    by 


68  The  PersenUion  of  the 

the  constitution,  they  protest  against  measures 
which  are  a  manifest  violation  of  the  doctrine,  the 
constitution,  and  the  disciphne  of  the  church. 

It  is  of  the  duty  and  right  of  each  bishop,  they 
declare,  to  teach  the  Catholic  doctrine  and  adminis- 
ter the  sacraments  within  his  own  diocese  ;  it  is  also 
of  his  duty  and  right  to  educate,  commission,  and 
appoint  the  priests  who  are  his  co-operators  and 
representatives  in  the  sacred  ministry  ;  and  it  is 
of  his  duty  and  right  to  exhort  and  encourage  them 
in  the  fulfilment  of  their  charge,  and,  when  they 
obstinately  refuse  to  obey  the  doctrine  and  laws  of 
the  church,  to  depose  them  from  office,  and  to  for- 
bid them  the  exercise  of  all  ecclesiastical  functions; 
all  of  which  rights  are  violated  by  the  proposed 
laws.  As  to  the  Royal  Court  for  Ecclesiastical  Af- 
fairs, they  affirm  that  they  can  never  recognize  its 
competency,  and  that  they  can  see  in  it  only  an 
attempt  to  reduce  the  divinely-constituted  church 
to  a  non-Catholic  and  national  institution. 

The  memorial  concludes  with  the  following  noble 
and  solemn  words  : 

"  Concord  between  church  and  state  is  the  safe- 
guard of  the  spiritual  and  the  temporal  power;  the 
indispensable  condition  of  the  welfare  of  all  hu- 
man society.  The  bishops,  the  priests,  the  Catholic 
people,  are  not  the  enemies  of  the  state  ;  they  are  not 
intolerant,  unjust,  or  without  charity  towards  those 
of  a  different  faith.  They  ask  nothing  so  earnestly 
as  to  be  allowed  to  live  in  peace  with  all  men  ;  but 
they  demand  that  they  themselves  be  permitted 
to  live  according  to  their  faith,  of  the  divinity  and 


Church  in  the  German  Empire.         69 

truth  of  which  they  are  most  thoroughly  convinced. 
They  require  that  the  integrity  of  religion  and  their 
church  and  the  liberty  of  their  conscience  be  left 
inviolate,  and  they  are  resolved  to  defend  their 
lawful  freedom,  and  even  the  smallest  right  of  the 
church,  with  all  energy  and  without  fear. 

"  P'rom  our  inmost  souls,  in  the  interest  of  the 
state  as  much  as  of  the  church,  we  conjure  and  im- 
plore the  authorities  to  abandon  the  disastrous  po- 
licy which  they  have  taken  up,  and  to  give  back  to 
the  Catholic  Church,  and  to  the  millions  of  the 
faithful  of  that  church  who  are  in  Prussia  and  in  the 
empire,  peace,  religious  liberty,  and  security  in  the 
possession  of  their  rights,  and  not  to  impose  upon  us 
laws  obedience  to  which  is  incompatible,  for  every 
bishop  and  for  every  priest  and  for  all  Catholics, 
with  the  fulfilment  of  duty — laws,  consequently, 
which  violate  conscience,  are  morally  impossible, 
and  which,  if  carried  into  execution  by  force,  will 
bring  untold  misery  upon  our  faithful  Catholic  peo- 
ple and  our  German  fatherland." 

The  organs  of  the  government  declared  that  the 
Memorial  was  an  ultimatum,  "  a  declaration  of  war  "; 
that  "  it  was  impossible  to  keep  the  peace  with 
these  bishops  ;  and  that  they  should  be  reduced  as 
soon  as  possible  to  a  state  in  which  they  could  do  no 
harm."  Accordingly,  the  discussion  of  the  Falk 
laws  was  hurried  up,  and  they  were  adopted  in  May 
by  a  majority  of  two-thirds. 

In  the  meantime,  the  government  continued  to 
follow  up  its  harsh  measures  against  the  religious 
orders,  going  so  far  as  to  close  the  churches  of  royal 


70  The  Persecution  of  the 

patronage  in  Poland,  in  order  to  prevent  their  con- 
secration to  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus.  It  even 
forbade  the  children  of  the  schools  to  assist  at  the 
devotions  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  The  Catholic  ca- 
sinos were  closed  ;  the  Congregations  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  the  Society  of  the  Holy  Childhood,  and 
other  religious  associations  were  suppressed.  The 
church  in  Cologne,  which  had  been  devoted  to  the 
use  of  thcCatholic  soldiers  of  the  Prussian  army,  was 
turned  over  to  the  Old  Catholics. 

By  the  beginning  of  1873  nearly  all  the  Jesuits 
had  withdrawn  from  the  territory  of  the  German 
Empire,  and  taken  refuge  in  France,  England,  Aus- 
tria, Belgium,  Brazil,  the  Indies,  and  the  United 
States.  Those  who  still  remained  were  interned 
and  placed  under  the  supervision  of  the  police. 
The  government  next  proceeded  to  take  steps  to 
suppress  those  religious  orders  which  it  considered 
as  affiliated  to  the  Jesuits.  A  mission  which  the 
Redemptorists  were  giving  at  Wehlen,  near  Treves, 
was  broken  up  by  the  police.  Another  mission 
which  they  were  about  to  open  at  Oberjosbach 
(Nassau)  was  interdicted  ;  whilst  almost  at  the 
same  time  several  Redemptorists  were  decorated 
"  for  services  rendered  to  the  fatherland  during  the 
war."  A  community  of  Lazarists  at  Kulm  was  dis- 
solved, and  convents  of  the  Ladies  of  the  Sacred 
Heart,  of  the  Sisters  of  Notre  Dame,  of  the  Sisters 
of  Charity,  and  of  the  Sisters  of  St.  Charles  were 
closed. 

Von  Gerlach,  the  President  of  the  Court  of  Ap- 
peals of  Magdeburg,  himself  a  Protestant,  has  in- 


Church  in  the  German  Empire.  7 1 

formed  us,  in  a  pamphlet  which  he  pubHshed  about 
this  time,  of  the  effect  of  these  persecutions  upon 
the  Cathohcs  of  Germany. 

'*  As  for  the  CathoHc  Church,"  he  wrote,  "  per- 
secutions strengthen  her.  In  fact,  her  moral  power 
is  increased  under  pressure.  The  Catholic  Church 
is  to-day  more  zealous,  more  compact,  more  united, 
more  confident  of  herself,  more  energetic,  and  bet- 
ter organized,  than  she  was  at  the  commencement 
of  1 87 1.  The  Roman  Catholics  have  good  reason 
to  be  thankful  that  their  church  has  gained  in  faith, 
in  the  spirit  of  sacrifice  and  prayer,  in  devoutness 
in  worship,  and  in  all  Christian  virtues. 

"  It  is  even  evident  that  the  interior  force  of  the 
religious  orders,  especially  that  of  the  Jesuits,  has 
been  proportionately  augmented.  Around  these 
proscribed  men  gather  all  those  who  love  them  to 
protect  and  help  them." 

The  courageous  conduct  of  the  German  bishops 
in  taking  a  firm  and  decided  stand  against  the  per- 
secutors of  the  church  met  with  the  almost  unani- 
mous approval  of  both  priests  and  people.  Dr. 
Dollinger  and  his  sect  were  forgotten.  If  there  had 
ever  been  any  life  in  the  impossible  thing,  it  went 
out  in  the  first  breath  of  the  storm  that  was  break- 
ing over  the  church.  All  the  cathedral  chapters 
gave  in  their  adhesion  to  their  respective  bishops, 
and  their  example  was  followed  by  the  pastors,  rec- 
tors, and  vicars  of  the  eleven  Prussian  dioceses. 
They  repelled  with  horror,  to  use  the  words  of  the 
clergy  of  Fulda,  the  attempt  to  separate  the  mem- 
bers from  the  head,  and  to  give  to  the  priesthood 


72  The  Persecution  of  the 

tutors  in  the  person  of  a  state  official.  Even  the 
twenty-nine  deacons  of  the  Seminary  of  Gnesen  en- 
tered their  protest,  recalling  in  their  address  to 
Archbishop  Ledochowski  the  beautiful  words  of  St. 
Laurence  to  Pope  Sixtus  as  he  was  led  to  martyr- 
dom :  Quo  sine  filio,  pater  ? 

The  Catholic  nobility,  in  their  meeting  at  Miin- 
ster  in  January,  1873,  openly  proclaimed  their  fidel- 
ity to  the  church  and  their  firm  resolve  to  defend 
her  rights  and  liberties ;  and  the  Catholic  people 
began  to  organize  throughout  the  Ernpire. 

"  The  Association  of  the  Catholic  Germans," 
which  now  counts  its  members  by  hundreds  of 
thousands,  was  formed,  with  the  motto,  Neither 
rebel  nor  apostate.  Its  Wanderversaininlungen  (mi- 
gratory reunions)  spring  up  everywhere,  and  become 
centres  of  Catholic  life.  This  association  is  based 
upon  the  constitutional  law,  its  acts  are  public,  the 
means  it  employs  are  legitimate,  and  the  end  it 
aims  at  is  distinctly  formulated  in  its  statutes. 

In  this  manner  the  Catholics  of  Germany  prepar- 
ed themselves,  not  to  commit  acts  of  violence  or  to 
transgress  the  law,  but  to  offer  a  passive  resistance 
to  tyranny  and  oppression,  to  uphold  liberty  of  con- 
science against  state  omnipotence,  and  to  suffer 
every  evil  rather  than  betray  their  souls'  faith. 

The  Imperial  government,  on  the  other  hand, 
showed  no  intention  of  withdrawing  its  arbitrary 
measures,  but  through  its  organs  openly  declared 
that  "  the  execution  of  the  clerical  laws  would  form 
a  clergy  as  submissive  and  tractable  as  the  Prussian 
army" ;  whilst  Herr  Falk  proclaimed  in  the  Reich- 


ChtLVch  in  the  German  Empire.         ^'^^ 

stag  "  that  the  government  was  resolved  to  make 
use  of  every  means  which  the  law  placed  within  its 
power  ;  and  if  the  present  laws  were  not  sufficient, 
others  would  be  framed  to  ensure  their  execution." 

The  ukase,  signed  by  Bismarck  on  the  20th  of 
May,  1873,  suppressed  the  convents  of  the  Redemp- 
torists,  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  of  the 
Lazarists,  and  of  the  Ladies  of  the  Sacred  Heart ; 
and  the  members  of  these  orders  were  commanded 
to  abandon  their  houses  before  the  end  of  the  fol- 
lowing November.  The  Ladies  of  the  Sacred  Heart 
were  accused  of  desiring  to  acquire  *'  universal  spir- 
itual dominion." 

The  bishops  were  called  on  to  submit  for  the  ap- 
proval of  the  government,  in  accordance  with  the 
tenor  of  the  May  laws,  the  plan  of  studies  and  the 
disciplinary  rules  of  their  diocesan  seminaries ; 
which,  of  course,  they  declined  to  do,  though  they 
foresaw  that  their  action  would  bring  about  the 
closing  of  these  institutions.  Herr  Falk,  the  Min- 
ister of  Worship,  ordered  an  examination  into  the 
revenues  of  the  different  parishes,  without  even 
asking  the  co-operation  of  the  bishops ;  and  the 
civil  authorities  were  warned  of  their  duty  to  notify 
the  government  of  all  changes  which  were  made  in 
the  body  of  the  clergy.  The  police  received  orders 
to  interfere,  at  certain  points,  with  Catholic  pilgrim- 
ages, which,  in  other  instances,  were  positively  in- 
terdicted. 

The  annual  allowance  of  twelve  hundred  thalers 
to  Mgr,  Ledochowski,  Archbishop  of  Posen,  was 
withdrawn,  his  seminary  was  closed,  and  all  teach- 
7 


74  The  Persecutioti  of  the 

ers  were  forbidden  to  ask  his  permission  to  give  re- 
ligious instruction.  In  November,  1873,  the  arch- 
bishop's furniture  was  seized  ;  even  his  paintings 
were  carried  off.  The  people,  gathering  in  crowds, 
shouted  after  the  officials:  "Thief!  thief!"  On 
the  23d  of  the  same  month  Mgr.  Ledochowski 
was  condemned  to  pay  a  fine  of  five  thousand  four 
hundred  thalers,  or,  in  default,  to  an  imprisonment 
of  two  years,  for  having  made  nine  appointments 
to  ecclesiastical  offices  contrary  to  the  laws  of 
May. 

Before  the  end  of  December,  the  fines  imposed 
upon  the  archbishop  had  reached  twenty-one  thou- 
sand thalers.  In  January,  1874,  he  was  cited  before 
a  delegate  judge  of  the  Royal  Court  for  Ecclesias- 
tical Affairs,  but  refused  to  appear,  since  he  could 
not,  in  conscience,  recognize  the  competency  of  a 
civil  tribunal  to  pass  sentence  on  the  manner  in 
which  he  had  exercised  his  pastoral  functions.  He 
moreover  averred  that,  in  case  the  threat  to  drag 
him  into  court  should  be  carried  out,  it  was  his 
firm  resolve  to  say  nothing. 

Several  priests  of  the  Diocese  of  Posen  had  al 
ready  been  incarcerated  for  failure  to  pay  the  fines 
of  the  government,  and  on  the  3d  of  February, 
1874,  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  archbishop 
was  himself  arrested  and  carried  off  to  prison  in 
Ostrowo,  a  town  of  about  seven  thousand  inhabi- 
tants, chiefly  Protestants  and  Jews. 

The  bishops  of  Prussia  at  once  drew  up  a  letter 
to  the  clergy  and  the  Catholic  people  of  their  dio- 
ceses, in  which  they  declared  that  "  the  only  crime 


Church  in  the  German  Empire.  75 

of  Archbishop  Ledochowski  was  that  of  having 
chosen  to  suffer  everything  rather  than  betray  the 
liberty  of  the  church  of  God  and  deny  Catholic 
truth,  sealed  by  the  precious  blood  of  the  Saviour.' 

The  canons  of  the  Chapter  of  Posen  were  ordered 
by  the  government  to  elect  a  capitular-vicar  ;  and 
as  they  declined  to  give  their  approval  to  the  cruel 
and  unjust  imprisonment  of  their  archbishop,  a 
state  official  was  appointed  to  take  charge  of  the 
affairs  of  the  diocese. 

Both  the  priests  and  people  of  Prussian  Poland 
remain  firm,  and  give  noble  examples  of  steadfast- 
ness in  the  faith. 

The  history  of  the  persecution  in  one  diocese  is, 
with  a  few  unimportant  differences,  that  of  all. 
More  than  a  year  ago  the  annual  allowance  of 
three  thousand  four  hundred  and  seventy  thalers 
made  to  the  Theological  Seminary  of  Cologne  was 
withdrawn.  Archbishop  Melchers  and  his  vicar- 
general  were  cited  before  a  civil  tribunal  for  the 
excommunication  of  two  apostates.  The  Lazarists 
were  driven  from  the  preparatory  seminaries  of 
Neuss  and  Miinstereifel. 

On  the  22d  of  November,  1873,  the  archbishop 
was  condemned  to  pay  a  fine  of  twenty-five  hun- 
dred thalers  for  five  appointments  made  in  viola- 
tion of  the  May  laws  ;  and  almost  every  week 
thereafter  new  fines  were  imposed,  until  finally  his 
furniture  was  seized  on  the  3d  of  February,  1874,. 
and  in  a  very  short  time  the  venerable  prelate  was 
incarcerated,  not  even  his  lawyer  being  allowed  to 
visit  him.     His  prison-cell  was  thought  to  be  too 


76  The  Pcrsectttion  of  the 

comfortable,  and  he  was  soon  changed  to  a  wretch- 
ed hole  under  the  very  roof  of  the  jail.  A  great 
number  of  pastors  and  vicars  of  his  diocese  were 
deprived  of  their  positions,  and  soir.e  of  them 
imprisoned. 

On  the  20th  of  November,  1873,  the  priests  of 
twenty-eight  towns  and  villages  of  the  Diocese  of 
Treves  were  interdicted  by  the  government,  and 
the  bishop  fined  thirty-six  hundred  thalers.  The 
Theological  Seminary  was  closed,  "  not  to  be  re- 
opened until  the  bishop  and  rector  should  accept 
in  gpod  faith  the  laws  of  May,  1873  "  ;  and  all 
seminarians  who  should  be  found  there  on  the  I2th 
of  January,  1874,  were  to  be  forcibly  ejected. 

The  15th  of  this  same  month  the  professors  were 
forbidden  to  instruct  the  students  of  theology, 
under  penalty  of  a  fine  of  fifteen  thalers  or  five 
days'  imprisonment  for  each  offence  ;  and  this  pro- 
hibition is  to  remain  in  vigor  until  the  bishop 
accepts  the  Falk  laws.  On  the  21st  of  January  an 
inventory  of  the  furniture  of  the  episcopal  palace 
was  taken.  The  goods  were  sold  at  public  auction 
on  the  6th  of  February ;  in  a  few  days  Bishop 
Eberhard  was  thrown  into  prison  ;  and  before  the 
end  of  August,  1874,  sixty  of  his  priests  were  con- 
fessing the  faith  in  the  dungeons  of  Treves  and 
Coblentz. 

The  old  Dominican  convent  in  Treves  had  been 
converted  into  a  prison,  and  it  is  there  that  the 
bishop  and  some  thirty  of  his  priests  were  incar- 
cerated. The  prison  discipline  is  rigid  and  harsh 
in  the  extreme.     These   confessors  of  Christ   are 


CIntrch  in  the  German  Empire,         jj 

forced  out  of  their  beds  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  from  this  until  they  retire  at  nine  in  the 
evening  they  must  either  walk  to  and  fro  in  their 
cells,  or  sit  upon  stools,  as  chairs  are  not  allowed. 
If  during  the  day  they  wish  to  lie  down  for  a 
moment,  an  official  at  once  informs  them  that  this 
is  not  permitted  ;  if  they  lean  against  the  wall,  the 
table,  or  the  bed,  they  again  receive  the  same 
warning.  A  jailer  accompanies  them  whenever 
necessity  forces  them  to  leave  their  cells.  All  let- 
ters to  and  from  the  prison  are  read  by  the  officials, 
and,  in  case  the  slightest  pretext  can  be  found,  are 
destroyed.  None  save  those  who  have  voluntarily 
given  themselves  up,  and  Avho,  after  a  first  impri- 
sonment, have  not  received  an  ovation  from  the 
people,  are  allowed  to  say  Mass,  The  bishop  is 
permitted  to  celebrate  the  Holy  Sacrifice,  but  no 
one  is  suffered  to  be  present  except  the  server  and 
the  indispensable  government  official. 

The  food  seems  scarcely  sufficient  to  sustain  life. 
We  have  received  from  a  most  trustworthy  person, 
who  during  the  past  summer  examined  into  this 
whole  matter  on  the  spot,  the  bill  of  fare  of  the 
priests  confined  in  the  prison  of  Treves,  which  we 
here  submit  to  our  readers : 

Breakfast,  Dinner.  Supper. 

Sunday  Porridge Peas Soup  and  Bread. 

Monday Coffee Beans Soup  and  Bread. 

Tuesday Porridge Potatoes Soup  and  Bread. 

Wednesday Soup Rye  Meal Soup  and  Bread. 

Thursday Soup Peas Porridge. 

Friday Coffee Rice Soup. 

Saturday Porridge Cabbage  .  . .  .Soup. 


78  The  Persecution  of  the 

Three  times  in  the  week  each  of  the  prisoners 
receives  a  small  piece  of  meat,  and  this  is  the  only 
change  ever  made  in  the  bill  of  fare  which  we  have 
just  given.  What  we  have  called  "  porridge  "  is 
known  at  Treves  under  the  name  of  Schlicht,  and  is 
a  kind  of  flour-paste.  When  we  reflect  that  there 
are  in  Germany  to-day  not  less  than  a  thousand 
priests  who  are  suffering  this  slow  and  cruel  mar- 
tyrdom, we  shall  be  able  to  realize  that  the  present 
pagan  persecution  may  in  all  truth  be  compared  to 
those  which,  in  the  first  ages  of  Christianity,  gave 
to  the  church  her  legions  of  martyrs  and  confessors. 
It  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  enter  into  a 
detailed  account  of  the  persecution  in  the  other 
dioceses  of  Germany.  The  same  scenes  are  every- 
where enacted — fines,  citations,  seizure  of  effects, 
interdicts,  and  imprisonments,  on  the  part  of  the 
government ;  whilst  the  Catholics,  standing  in  un- 
shaken fidelity  to  God  and  conscience,  suffer  in 
patience  every  outrage  that  their  enemies  can  in- 
flict, rather  than  betray  the  sacred  cause  of  the 
religion  of  Christ.  The  May  laws  of  1873  did  not 
prove  sufficiently  harsh  or  tyrannical  to  satisfy  the 
Prussian  infidels ;  and  they  were  consequently  sup- 
plemented by  clauses  which  passed  both  houses  of 
the  Reichstag  in  May,  1874.  In  virtue  of  these 
amendments,  the  state  can  decree  the  sequestration 
of  the  goods  of  an  ecclesiastical  post  not  occupied 
in  the  manner  prescribed  by  the  Falk  laws.  In  this 
case  these  goods  are  to  be  administered  by  a  royal 
commissary. 

The  Royal  Court  for  Ecclesiastical  Affairs  receives 


Church  in  the  German  Empire.         79 

the  power  to  depose  bishops  ;  and,  this  deposition 
being  once  pronounced,  they  are  forbidden  to  exer- 
cise any  ecclesiastical  functions  in  their  respective 
dioceses,  which  by  this  very  fact  are  placed  under* 
interdict.  When  the  bishop  is  deposed  by  the  Royal 
Court,  the  cathedral  chapter  is  summoned  to  pro- 
ceed to  elect  his  successor  ;  and  in  case  it  fails  to 
comply  with  this  injunction  within  ten  days,  all 
goods  belonging  to  the  episcopal  see,  as  well  as 
those  of  the  chapter  of  the  diocese,  and  of  the  par- 
ishes, are  sequestrated  and  administered  by  the 
government. 

This  miserable  legislation  gives  to  the  state  the 
entire  spiritual  power,  and  ignores  alike  the  rights 
of  God  and  those  of  the  free  Christian  conscience. 
Still,  it  is  only  the  legitimate  and  logical  expression 
of  the  views  and  aims  of  the  modern  heathen- 
ism which  is  organizing  throughout  Europe  for  the 
destruction  of  the  religion  of  Christ. 

The  May  laws  of  1873  required  the  bishops  to 
convert  all  the  incumbents  having  charge  of 
churches  into  permanent  and  irremovable  par- 
ish priests  ;  and  in  consequence  the  position  of 
twelve  hundred  and  forty-one  incumbents  in  the 
Rhine  Province  became  illegal  on  the  nth  of  May, 
1874.  A  general  interdict  was  therefore  expected, 
and  even  a  process  to  compel  the  bishop  to  comply 
with  this  clause  was  looked  for ;  but  Herr  Falk 
seems  to  have  been  frightened  by  his  own  legisla- 
tion, since  already,  on  the  8th  of  May,  he  announc- 
ed in  the  Reichstag  that  only  those  priests  whom 
"the  government  considered  dangerous  "  would  be 


8o  The  Persecution  of  the 

notified  of  the  proceedings  taken  against  the  bish- 
ops, and  that  no  others  would  be  held  to  come  un- 
der the  operation  of  the  law.  In  this  manner  the 
J^russian  Minister  of  Worship  avoided  the  odium  of 
a  general  interdict,  whilst  by  a  slower  process  he 
hopes  eventually  to  bring  about  this  result.  The 
moment  the  incumbent  of  a  church  receives  official 
notification  that  his  bishop  has  been  put  under  re- 
straint, he  is  by  the  very  fact  forbidden  to  perform 
any  ecclesiastical  function,  and  his  post  is  consider- 
ed vacant.  The  LandratJi  then  declares  this  vacancy, 
and  invites  the  parishioners  to  prepare  for  the 
election  of  a  successor  to  their  former  pastor. 

That  this  election  may  take  place,  it  suffices  that 
ten  men,  who  are  of  age  and  in  the  full  possession  of 
their  civil  rights,  put  in  an  appearance,  and  the  per- 
son chosen  by  them  and  approved  of  by  the  civil 
authority  is  recognized  as  the  lawful  incumbent. 

The  evident  aim  of  this  law  is  to  create  a  schism 
in  every  parish  in  the  German  Empire,  which,  by 
fomenting  divisions  amongst  the  Catholics,  would 
greatly  aid  the  government  in  its  effijrts  to  destroy 
the  church.  But  this  is  only  one  of  innumerable 
instances  in  which  the  persecutors  have  been  wholly 
mistaken. 

They  counted  first  upon  the  weakness  of  the 
Catholic  bishops  ;  confidently  expecting  tliat  one  or 
the  other  of  them  would  place  himself  at  the  head 
of  the  Old  Catholics,  and  thus,  whilst  causing  great 
scandal  in  the  church,  give  to  that  still-born  sect  at 
least  a  semblance  of  respectability.  But  not  one  of 
the  German  prelates  wavered.     They  go  to  prison, 


Church  in  the  German  Empire.  8 1 

like  the  apostles,  rejoicing  that  they  are  found  Avor- 
thy  to  suffer  for  Christ,  and  declare  that  they  are 
willing  to  shed  their  blood  for  the  holy  cause. 
Their  enemies  are  not  more  ready  to  inflict  than 
they  to  bear  wrong  and  outrage  for  the  love  of  Je- 
sus. Then,  there  was  no  doubt  in  the  minds  of  the 
Prussian  infidels  that  large  numbers  of  the  clergy 
would  take  advantage  of  the  bribes  offered  by  gov- 
ernment to  apostates  to  throw  off  the  authority  of 
the  bishops,  and  to  constitute  themselves  into  a 
schismatical  body.  On  the  contrary,  the  persecu- 
tion has  only  drawn  tighter  the  bonds  which  unite 
the  priests  with  their  chief  pastors.  In  all  Germany 
there  have  not  been  found  more  than  thirty  ration- 
alistic professors  and  suspended  priests  who  were 
willing  to  take  sides  with  Dollingerin  his  rebellion  ; 
and  the  juridically-proven  immorality  of  Bishop 
Reinkens  will  no  doubt  give  us  a  true  insight  into 
the  characters  of  most  of  the  men  who  have  elected 
him  their  ecclesiastical  superior. 

When  the  persecutors  found  that  both  bishops 
and  priests  were  immovable  in  their  devotion  to  the 
church,  they  appealed  to  the  Catholic  people,  and,  by 
the  laws  of  May,  1874,  placed  it  in  their  power  to 
create  a  schism,  by  giving  them  the  right  to  elect 
their  own  pastors,  with  the  promise  that  govern- 
ment would  turn  the  churches  over  to  them.  But 
this  attempt  to  show  that  the  bishops  and  priests 
of  Germany  have  not  the  sympathy  and  confidence 
of  the  laity  has  met  with  signal  rebuke. 

The  elections  for  the  Prussian  Landtag  in  No- 
vember, 1873,  and  those  for  the  Reichstag  in  Janu- 

8 


82  The  Persecution  of  the 

aiy,  1874,  had  not  merely  a  political  significance; 
their  bearing  upon  the  present  and  future  welfare  of 
the  church  in  the  German  Empire  is  of  the  greatest 
importance.  Opportunity  was  given  to  the  Catho- 
lic people  to  make  a  public  confession  of  faith ;  to 
declare,  in  words  which  could  not  be  misunderstood, 
.whether  or  not  they  were  resolved  to  stand  firm 
in  the  struggle  into  which  their  leaders  had  been 
forced. 

In  the  November  elections,  in  spite  of  every  ef- 
fort of  the  government,  the  Catholics  increased 
their  representatives  in  the  Landtag  from  fifty-two 
to  eighty-nine  ;  and  in  the  Reichstag  their  members 
have  grown  from  sixty-three  to  considerably  more 
than  one  hundred. 

The  entire  Rhenish  Province  elected  Catholics. 
Cologne,  Dusseldorf,  Treves,  Coblentz,  Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle,  Crefeld,  Bonn,  Neuss,  DUren,  Essen,  Mal- 
medy,  JSIiilheim,  all  the  cities  of  the  Lower  Rhine, 
made  their  vote  an  act  of  faith.  Windthorst,  the 
leader  of  the  Catholic  party,  was  elected  at  Mep- 
pen  (Hanover)  over  Falk,  the  author  of  the  May 
laws,  by  a  majority  of  nearly  fifteen  thousand. 
The  entire  vote  for  Falk  was  only  three  hundred 
and  forty-seven. 

The  result  of  the  elections  undoubtedly  startled 
the  government,  and  possibly  shook  Bismarck's  con- 
fidence in  the  power  of  persecution  to  destroy 
Catholic  faith ;  but  the  struggle  had  grown  too 
fierce  to  allow  him  to  think  of  withdrawing. 

On  the  contrary,  the  firmness  of  the  Catholic 
people  incited  the  persecutors  to  still  harsher  mea- 


Church  in  the  German  Empire.         8 


o 


SLires;  but  nothing  that  they  have  done  or  can  do 
will  succeed  in  breaking  the  combined  passive  op- 
position of  the  clergy  and  the  laity. 

In  the  Vatican  Council,  the  most  determined  re- 
sistance to  the  definition  of  the  infallibility  of  the 
Pope  was  made  by  the  German  bishops,  who  felt 
no  hesitation  in  openly  declaring  with  what  anxiety 
they  regarded  the  probable  effects  of  such  a  defini- 
tion upon  the  Catholics  of  their  own  country.  Di- 
visions, apostasies,  schisms,  seemed  imminent  ;  and 
it  is  not  easy  now  to  determine  what  might  have 
been  the  result  had  not  God's  providence  inter- 
fered. 

In  the  first  place,  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
definition  was  made,  the  terrible  conflict  between 
France  and  Prussia  broke  forth,  and  raged  so  fierce- 
ly that  the  loud  earth  was  struck  dumb,  and  men 
held  their  breath  till  it  should  be  ended.  In  the 
meantime,  the  angry  feelings  aroused  by  the  dis- 
cussions in  the  Vatican  Council  had,  in  great  mea- 
sure, been  calmed,  and  it  was  "possible  to  take  a 
fairer  and  more  dispassionate  view  of  the  Avhole 
subject. 

Then  the  attempt  of  the  government  to  destroy 
the  Catholic  Church  in  Germany,  by  tearing  it 
away  from  its  allegiance  to  the  Pope,  and  debasing 
it  to  a  mere  function  of  the  state,  roused  those  who 
might  have  been  disposed  to  waver,  and  brought 
about  a  universal  reawakening  of  faith.  It  is  the 
fate  of  the  enemies  of  God's  people  to  bless  when 
they  mean  to  curse.  In  fact,  when  Catholics  begin 
to  suffer,  they  begin  to  triumph  ;  and  hence  even 


84  The  Perseactioit  of  the 

those  who  hate  us  have  of  nothing  so  great  horror 
as  of  making  martyrs  and  confessors  of  us.  They 
know  the  history  of  martyrdom — that  in  the  Avhole 
earth  and  in  all  ages  it  means  victory. 

The  church,  which  sprang  from  the  conflict  of 
the  God-Man  with  death,  like  him,  in  her  greatest 
humiliation  shows  forth  her  highest  power. 

Her  march  through  the  world  and  through  the 
ages  is  not  along  pleasant  roads  and  through  peace- 
ful prospects,  or,  if  so,  only  at  times  and  rarely. 
If  she  move  in  pomp  amid  the  acclamations  of 
peoples,  her  triumphal  procession  ends  in  sorrow. 
The  bark  of  Peter  must  be  storm-tossed  ;  and  when 
the  angry  waves  would  swallow  it,  the  divine  voice 
speaks  the  magic  word,  and  the  quiet  deep  bears  it 
secure  on  its  peaceful  bosom. 

The  road  wherein  the  progress  of  the  church  is 
most  certain  is  the  blood-stained  way  of  the  cross. 
When  she  is  all  bruised,  and  there  is  no  comeliness 
left  in  her;  when  her  eyes  are  red  with  weeping, 
and  the  world,  beholding  her  agony,  mocks  and  jeers 
and  laughs  her  to  scorn,  then  is  she  strongest  ;  for 
her  strength  comes  from  humility,  from  suffering, 
from  the  cross.  When  she  is  humbled,  God  exalts 
her ;  when  he  permits  her  enemies  to  entomb  her 
in  ignominy,  he  is  near  at  hand  to  crown  her  with 
the  immortal  glory  of  a  new  life.  The  word  of 
Christ  is:  "You  shall  live  in  the  world  in  the 
midst  of  persecutions  ;  but  take  heart :  I  have 
conquered  the  world." 

Within  the  memory  of  those  who  are  still  young, 
it  was  the  fashion  with  our   enemies   to   proclaim 


Church  in  the  German  Empire.  85 

that  the  church  was  decrepit,  that  she  was  dyings 
that  of  her  own  weight  she  would  fall  to  pieces  in 
the  new  society  that  was  growing  up  around  her  : 
to-day  we  hear  that  she  is  everywhere  waxing  too 
strong,  and  men  appeal  against  her  to  tyranny  and 
to  brute  force. 

The  most  powerful  and  the  most  thoroughly  or- 
ganized of  the  modern  nations,  the  great  Ciiltur- 
Staat  of  this  most  enlightened  age,  has  confessed 
that  it  is  unable  to  check  the  growth  of  the  church 
by  legitimate  means,  and  it  has  therefore  had  re- 
course to  the  most  arbitrary  legislation  and  to 
the  harshest  measures  of  compulsion  and  violence. 
This,  of  course,  is  an  explicit  avowal  of  its  own  im- 
potence. We  find  also  that  the  two  nations  which 
have  manifested  the  most  supercilious  indifference 
to  the  Catholic  Churchj  as  being  something  which 
'did  not  and  could  not  concern  them,  now  applaud 
this  Prussian  tyranny,  in  spite  of  the  pretence  of 
the  love  of  freedom  and  fair  play.  The  sympathy 
of  the  English  press,  and  to  a  great  extent  of  the 
American  press,  in  this  struggle,  is  with  the  abso- 
lute and  liberty-destroying  government  of  Prussia. 
The  favorite  motto  of  "  civil  and  religious  liberty 
all  the  world  over"  has  been  wholly  lost  sight  of, 
and  Englishmen  and  Americans  give  moral  aid  to  a 
state  which  wantonly  tramples  upon  both. 

This,  too,  was  a  cherished  watchword :  The 
church  is  the  friend  of  absolutism,  the  enemy  of 
freedom. 

But  to-day  we  behold  the  Catholic  Church,  single- 
handed,  fighting  again   the  same  battles  of  liberty 


86  The  Pei'secutio7i  of  the 

which  she  fought  and  \yon  in  the  early  centuries 
of  Christianity.  Now,  as  then,  she  opposes  absolu- 
tism in  the  state  ;  denies,  as  she  then  denied, 
that  Caesar  can  lawfully  lay  claim  to  "  the  things 
of  God"  ;  and  protests,  in  the  name  of  the  outraged 
dignity  of  human  nature,  that  there  is  a  freedom 
which  transcends  the  sphere  of  all  earthly  authority. 
Her  children,  when  nothing  else  remains  to  be  done, 
utter  the  divine  words  :  Non  possnintis — we  cannot ; 
we  must  obey  God  rather  than  men. 

Referring  to  this  struggle,  Bismarck  has  said,  in 
a  memorable  speech,  that  "  it  is  the  ancient  contest 
for  power,  which  is  as  old  as  the  human  race  itself — 
the  contest  for  power  between  king  and  priest." 
This  is  necessarily  the  view  which  he  takes,  since 
he  believes  in  nothing  but  force.  But  the  dualism 
here  is  not  in  the  combatants  alone  ;  it  is  in  the 
objects  for  which  they  contend. 

It  is  indeed  the  ancient  contest  between  good 
and  evil,  between  the  spirit  and  the  flesh,  between 
the  Christ  and  the  rulers  of  this  world,  v/hich  makes 
life  a  warfare  and  the  earth  a  battle-field,  and  which 
must  continue  until  the  end.  Never  has  it  been 
fiercer  than  in  our  day,  and  the  battle  is  yet  hardly 
begun.  But  very  few  indeed  understand  the  na- 
ture of  the  struggle,  or  are  at  all  aware  of  the  real 
principles  and  interests  which  are  at  stake.  Few 
men  can  see  further  than  an  hour  or  beyond  the 
little  circle  that  bounds  their  private  interests;  but 
each  day  it  is  becoming  more  evident  that  all  must 
take  sides  ;  that  not  to  be  for  Christ  is  to  be  against 
him. 


CImrch  in  the  German  Empire.         87 

Twice  in  the  last  eighteen  hundred  years  the 
church  has  been  the  ark  of  the  nations :  she  surviv- 
ed the  destruction  of  paganism  ;  she  converted  and 
civilized  barbarism.  Some  historian  will  tell,  in 
another  age,  how,  when  Christian  society,  grown 
luxurious  and  corrupt,  without  God  and  without 
future  hope,  was  sinking  back  into  the  flesh-wor- 
ship and  the  death  of  ancient  paganism,  she,  gath- 
ering around  her  the  remnant  of  her  children,  and 
fearlessly  facing  the  storm  and  the  wrath  of  those 
who  had  ceased  to  know  her, "kept  her  own  pure 
and  undefiled  till  the  dawn  of  the  brighter  day, 
to  become  the  leaven  of  the  social  state  that  is 
to  be. 


COMPARATIVE  INFLUENCE  OF  CATHO- 
LICISM AND  PROTESTANTISM  ON  NA- 
TIONAL  PROSPERITY.-^ 

WEALTH. 


T  is  wonderful,"  wrote  Proudhon,  "  how 
in  all  our  political  questions  we  always 
stumble  on  theology."  Mr.  Gladstone 
will  doubtless  concur  in  this  senti- 
ment ;  for  he  cannot  take  a  step  without  stumb- 
ling ^  the  Catholic  Church.  She  is  every- 
where, and  everywhere  she  is  to  him  a  cause  of 
alarm.  So  potent  is  her  influence  growing  to  be, 
so  cunningly  laid  are  the  plans  by  which  her  policy 
is  directed,  so  perfect  is  the  organization  and  disci- 
pline of  her  forces,  so  insidious  are  her  methods  of 
procedure,  as  he  would  have  us  believe,  that  it  is 
full  time  all  Christendom  were  warned  of  the  ap- 
proaching danger.  She  is  in  his  eyes  an  ever- 
present  menace  to  the  civilization  of  the  world. 

He  at  least   bears  testimony  to  her  power  and 
vitality.      She  is  not  a  relic  of  a  past  age  ;  she  lives, 

*  Protestantism  and  Cat!toli:ism  in  tkeir  hearing  ■u/>en  the  Liierty  and 
Prosperity  of  Nations.  A  study  of  social  economy.  By  Emile  de  Laveleye. 
With  an  introductory  letter  by  the  Rt.  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.P.      London, 

1875. 


Influence  of  Catholicisin,  etc.  89 

and,  what  is  more,  it  does  not  seem  that  she  is 
willing  to  die.  If  we  consider  the  various  efforts 
by  which  men  are  seeking  to  weaken  and  destroy 
the  church,  we  shall  find  in  them  no  mean  evidence 
of  her  divine  strength.  And  first  of  all,  in  an  age 
intellectually  most  active,  she  is  the  subject  of 
universal  criticism,  and  is  cited  before  every  tri- 
bunal of  human  knowledge  to  be  tried  on  an  hun- 
dred different  and  often  contradictory  counts.  Her 
historical  relations  with  the  world,  extending  over 
eighteen  hundred  years  and  co-extensive  with  Chris- 
tendom, are  minutely  examined  into  by  men  who, 
shutting  their  eyes  to  the  benefits  which  she  has 
conferred  upon  the  human  race,  are  eager  to  dis- 
cover charges  against  her.  She  is  made  responsible 
for  the  crimes  of  those  who  called  themselves  Ca- 
tholics, though  she  was  the  first  to  condemn  their 
evil  deeds.  The  barbarism,  the  ignorance,  and  the 
cruelty  of  the  middle  ages  are  set  to  her  count, 
when,  in  fact,  she  was  the  chief  source  of  civiliza- 
tion, of  enlightenment,  and  of  mercy  during  that 
period.  When  she  opposes  the  tyranny  of  kings, 
she  is  called  the  enemy  of  the  state  ;  when  she  seeks 
to  restrain  the  lawlessness  of  the  people,  she  is 
proclaimed  the  friend  of  tyrants.  Not  in  politics 
alone,  but  in  all  the  sciences,  men  in  our  day  stum- 
ble on  the  Catholic  Church. 

We  are  told  that  she  is  the  one  great  spiritual 
organization  which  is  able  to  resist,  and  must  as  a 
matter  of  life  and  death  resist,  the  progress  of 
science  and  modern  civilization.  Men  profess  to 
find   innumerable   points  of   collision   between  her 


90  Infltie7icc  of  Catholicism  and 

dogmas  and  the  conclusions  of  science,  and  are 
surprised  when  she  claims  to  understand  her  own 
teachings  better  than  they,  and  is  not  prepared  to 
abandon  all  belief  in  God,  the  soul,  and  future  life 
because  physical  research  has  given  us  a  wider 
knowledge  of  the  phenomena  of  matter.  Now  we 
hear  objections  to  her  moral  teaching — that  it  is 
too  severe,  that  she  imposes  burdens  upon  men's 
shoulders  too  heavy  for  human  nature  to  bear,  that 
she  encourages  asceticism,  celibacy,  and  all  manner 
of  self-denial  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  age  and 
of  progress;  then,  on  the  contrary,  that  her  mo- 
rality is  lax,  that  she  flatters  the  passions  of  men, 
panders  to  their  sensual  appetites,  and  grants,  for 
gain,  permission  to  commit  every  excess. 

At  one  time  we  are  told  that  her  priests  are 
indolent,  immoral,  ignorant,  without  faith  ;  at  an- 
other, that  they  arc  ceaselessly  active,  astute, 
learned,  and  wholly  intent  upon  bringing  all  men 
to  their  own  way  of  thinking.  Now  we  are  in- 
formed that  her  children  cannot  be  loyal  subjects 
of  any  government ;  and  immediately  after  we  hear 
that  they  are  so  subservient,  so  passively  obedient, 
that  they  willingly  submit  to  any  master.  And 
here  we  come  more  immediately  upon  our  subject  ; 
for  whereas  Mr.  Gladstone  has  declared  that  the 
loyalty  of  Catholics  is  not  to  be  trusted,  M.  de 
Laveleye  asserts  that  "  despotic  government  is  the 
congenial  government  of  Catholic  populations." 

The  pamphlet  from  which  we  quote  these  words, 
and  which  we  propose  now  to  examine,  has  been 
presented  to  the  English-reading  public  by  special 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.    9 1 

request  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  has  been  farther 
honored  by  him  with  a  prefatory  letter.  The 
author,  it  is  true,  takes  a  fling  at  the  Church  of 
England,  and  plainly  intimates  that  in  his  opinion 
it  is  little  better  than  the  Catholic  Church ;  but  the 
ex-premier  could  not  forego  the  opportunity  of 
striking  his  enemy,  though  he  should  pierce  his 
dearest  friend  in  giving  the  blow.  He  takes  the 
precaution,  indeed,  to  disclaim  any  concurrence  in 
M.  de  Laveleye's  "  rather  unfavorable  estimate  of 
the  Church  of  England  in  comparison  with  the 
other  reformed  communions."  The  question  dis- 
cussed in  the  pamphlet  before  us,  as  its  title 
implies,  is  the  relative  influence  of  Catholicism  and 
Protestantism  on  the  liberty  and  prosperity  of 
nations  ;  and  the  conclusion  which  is  drawn  is  that 
the  Reformation  is  favorable  to  freedom  and  pro- 
gress, and  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  a  hindrance 
to  both. 

This  has  long  been  a  favorite  theme  with  Pro- 
testants— the  weapon  with  which  they  think  them- 
selves best  able  to  do  good  battle  in  their  cause  ; 
and  doubtless  it  is  employed,  in  most  favorable 
circumstances,  in  an  age  like  ours,  in  which  mate- 
rial progress  is  so  marked  a  feature  that  its  influence 
may  be  traced  in  everything,  and  in  nothing  more 
than  in  the  thoughts  and  philosophies  of  the  men 
of  our  day.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  Protes- 
tantism, professing  to  be  a  purer  and  more  spiritual 
worship,  should  have  tended  to  turn  men's  minds 
almost  exclusively  to  the  worldly  and  temporal 
view  of  religion  ;  so  that  it  has  become  the  fashion 


92  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

to  praise  Christianity,  not  because  it  makes  men 
humble,  pure,  self-denying,  content  with  little,  but 
rather  because  its  influence  is  supposed  to  be  of 
almost  an  opposite  nature.  Much  stress  is  laid 
upon  the  physical,  social,  and  mental  superiority  of 
Christian  nations  to  those  that  are  still  pagan,  and 
the  inference  implied,  if  not  always  expressly  stat- 
ed, is  that  these  temporal  advantages  are  due  to 
the  influence  of  ChristJanity,  and  prove  its  truth 
and  divine  origin.  Without  stopping  to  consider 
the  question  whether  the  material  and  social  supe- 
riority of  Christian  nations  is  to  be  attributed  to 
their  religious  faith,  we  may  ask  whether,  admit- 
ting that  this  is  the  case,  it  may  with  propriety  be 
adduced  in  proof  of  the  truth  of  the  religion  of 
Christ  ? 

In  the  case  of  individuals  no  one,  certainly,  would 
think  of  arguing  that  prosperity  proves  a  right  faith, 
or  even  consistent  practice.  To  hold  that  wealth 
and  success  are  evidences  of  religious  life,  whatever 
it  may  be,  is  certainly  not  Christian  doctrine.  Does 
the  teaching  of  Christ  permit  the  rich  to  lay  the 
unction  to  their  souls  that  they  are  God's  favored 
children?  Were  they  his  friends?  Did  they  flock 
round  him?  Did  they  drink  in  his  words  gladly? 
If  men  who  claim  to  be  his  disciples  have  deified 
worldly  success,  and  made  temporal  prosperity  a 
sufficient  test  of  the  trutli  of  his  religion,  they  can- 
not plead  any  word  of  his  in  excuse. 

He  certainly  never  paid  court  to  the  great,  or 
stooped  to  flatter  the  rich.  Was  it  not  he  who 
said,  "  Woe  be  to  }'ou  rich  :  )'e  have  received  your 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.    93 

reward"  ?  and  again,  ''  It  is  harder  for  a  rich  man 
to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven  than  for  a  camel  to 
pass  through  the  eye  of  a  needle"?  Did  he  not 
take  Lazarus  to  his  bosom  when  Dives  was  in  hell  ? 

"  Blessed  are  ye,"  he  said,  "  when  men  shall  revile 
you,  and  persecute  you,  and  shall  say  all  manner 
of  evil  against  you  falsely  for  my  sake.  Rejoice 
and  be  exceeding  glad  ;  for  great  is  your  reward  in 
heaven  :  for  so  persecuted  they  the  prophets  which 
were  before  you." 

The  preaching  of  Christ  Avas  wholly  unworldly. 
He  sternly  repressed  the  earthly  ambitions  of  his 
disciples,  and  declared  that,  as  the  world  hated 
him,  it  would  also  hate  those  who  believed  in  him. 
They  would  be  outcasts  for  his  name's  sake  ;  if  this 
life  were  all,  they  of  all  men  would  be  most  misera- 
ble. Indeed,  he  rarely  speaks  of  human  happiness 
in  the  customary  sense  ;  he  passes  over  what  might 
be  said  in  favor  of  this  life,  and  brings  out  in  bold 
relief  its  vanity  and  unsatisfactoriness.  He  draws 
no  pictures  of  domestic  bliss,  and  says  but  little  of 
even  innocent  pleasures  or  those  temporal  blessings 
which  are  so  sweet  to  all ;  and  as  he  taught  that 
worldly  prosperity  is  no  evidence  of  God's  favor,  he 
was  careful  to  correct  the  error  of  those  who  looked 
upon  misfortune  as  a  proof  of  guilt,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  man  born  blind  and  of  those  upon  whom  a 
tower  had  fallen. 

Christ  was  poor,  his  apostles  were  poor,  his  disci- 
ples were  poor,  nearly  all  the  Christians  of  the  first 
ages  were  poor ;  and  yet  every  day  we  hear  men 
talk  as  though  they  considered  poverty  and  Chris- 


94  Injlucnce  of  Caiholicism  and 

tianity  incompatible.  This  is  manifestly  the  opin- 
ion of  M.  de  Laveleye.  His  argument  may  be 
stated  in  this  way:  England  and  Scotland  are  rich, 
Ireland  is  poor.  The  Protestant  cantons  of  Switz- 
erland are  rich,  the  Catholic  are  poor.  "  In  the 
United  States,"  says  De  Tocqueville,  "  the  greater 
part  of  the  Catholics  are  poor."  In  fact,  wherever 
the  two  religions  exist  together,  the  Protestants  are 
more  active,  more  industrious,  and  consequently 
richer  than  the  Catholics. 

This  is  the  substance  of  what  is  spread  over  a 
dozen  pages  of  the  pamphlet.  The  conclusion  is 
not  difficult  to  draw.  Protestants  are  richer  than 
Catholics,  and  therefore  better  Christians. 

"  No  man  can  serve  two  masters,"  said  Christ : 
"you  cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon."  On  the 
contrary,  says  M.  de  Laveleye,  the  success  with 
which  you  worship  Mammon  is  the  best  proof  that 
you  serve  God  truly.  Of  course  it  would  be  foreign 
to  M.  de  Laveleye's  purpose  to  stop  to  inquire 
whether  the  poverty  of  Ireland  be  due  to  the  Ca- 
tholic faith  of  her  people  or  to  til?  rapacity  and 
misgovernment  of  England  ;  whether  that  of  the 
Catholic  cantons  of  Switzerland  might  not  be  ac- 
counted for  by  the  fact  that  they  are  mountainous, 
with  an  inhospitable  climate  and  a  barren  soil ;  and 
whether  even  M.  de  Tocqueville's  assertion  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  Catholics  of  the  United  States 
are  poor  might  not  be  satisfactorily  explained  by 
stating  that  the  greater  part  of  them  are  emigrants 
Avho  have  recently  landed  upon  these  shores  without 
a  superabundance  of  this  world's  goods. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.    95 

He  had  also  good  reasons,  while  treating  this 
part  of  his  subject,  for  not  looking  nearer  home. 
He  had  in  Belgium,  under  his  very  eye,  one  of  the 
most  thrifty,  industrious,  and  prosperous  peoples 
of  Europe,  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most 
Catholic.  Why  did  he  not  compare  the  wealth  of 
Belgium  with  that  of  Sweden  or  Denmark?  Why 
did  he  not  say  a  word  about  Catholic  France,  whose 
wealth  and  thrift  cannot  be  denied.  He  does, 
indeed,  make  mention  of  two  French  manufacturing 
towns,  in  which,  he  states,  on  the  authority  of  M. 
Audiganne,  the  capitalists  are  for  the  most  part 
Protestants,  whilst  the  operatives  are  Catholics ; 
though  what  this  has  to  do  with  any  debatable 
question  between  Catholicism  and  Protestantism  is 
not  easily  seen. 

The  assertion  *  that  "  wherever  the  two  religions 
co-exist  in  the  same  country  the  Protestants  are 
more  active,  more  industrious,  more  economical, 
and  consequently  richer  than  the  Catholics,"  is  not 
borne  out  by  facts.  A  single  example  will  suffice 
to  show  how  rash  M.  de  Laveleye  has  been  in 
making  so  wide  an  affirmation.  The  Catholics  of 
the  Rhine  Province  are  universally  acknowledged 
to  be  among  the  most  thrifty  and  enterprising  popu- 
lations of  Prussia,  and  are  far  richer  than,  for  in- 
stance, the  Protestants  of  Pomerania. 

It  would  not  be  difficult,  by  adopting  M.  de 
Laveleye's  mode  of  reasoning,  to  turn  his  whole 
argument  on  this  point  against  his  own  position. 
Whether  or  not  national  wealth,  we  might  say,  is 

*p.  14. 


96  htjluence  of  Catholicism  and 

evidence  of  orthodox  Christian  faith,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  but  that  the  Cliristian  reHgion  is  favora- 
ble to  even  the  temporal  interests  of  the  lowest  and 
most  degraded  classes  of  society.  Its  doctrines  on 
the  brotherhood  of  the  race  and  the  equality  of  all 
before  God  first  inspired  worthy  notions  of  the  dig- 
nity of  man.  Then  the  sympathy  which  is  created 
for  the  poor,  the  suffering,  and  the  oppressed  natu- 
rally set  men  to  work  to  devise  means  for  the  relief 
of  human  misery.  It  is  to  its  influence  that  we 
must  ascribe  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the  elevation 
of  woman,  and  the  thousand  ministries  which  in 
Christian  land's  attend  on  the  wretched  and  the 
weak. 

We  must  infer  that  those  nations  in  which  this 
influence  is  most  powerful — which,  in  other  words, 
are  most  truly  Christian — will  have,  in  proportion 
to  their  population,  the  smallest  class  of  human 
beings  cursed  by  the  worst  plague  known  to  modern 
civilization,  bearing  with  it,  as  it  does,  a  threefold 
degradation,  moral,  physical,  and  social.  We  of 
course  refer  to  pauperism. 

Now,  in  England,  from  whose  wealth  M.  de 
Laveleye  would  infer  the  superiority  of  her  religion, 
we  find  that  this  pauper  class,  compared  with  the 
whole  population,  is  as  1  to  23  ;  whereas  in  Ireland, 
which  is  poor — and,  according  to  this  theory,  for 
that  reason  under  the  ban  of  a  false  religion — there 
is  but  I  pauper  to  90  inhabitants  ;  in  other 
words,  pauperism  is  four  times  more  common  in 
England  than  in  Ireland.  Now,  whether  Ave  refer 
this  fact  to  Encrland's  wealth  or  to  Enc^land's  reli- 


Protestantism  on  N^ationa I  Prosperity.    97 

gion — and  in  M.  de  Lavcleye's  opinion  they  are 
correlative — our  conclusion  must  be  either  that  the 
influence  of  the  Christian  religion,  which  necessarily 
tends  to  promote  the  temporal  well-being  of  the 
most  degraded  classes  of  society,  is  less  felt  in  Eng- 
land than  in  Ireland,  or  else  that  national  wealth  is 
hurtful  to  the  interests  of  these  same  classes,  and 
consequently  opposed  to  the  true  Christian  spirit  ; 
and  in  either  case  we  have  Catholic  Ireland  more 
fairly  Christian  than  Protestant  England.  We 
would  not  have  our  readers  think  for  a  moment 
that  we  are  seriously  of  the  opinion  that  our  argu- 
ment proves  anything  at  all.  We  give  it  merely 
as  a  specimen  of  the  way  in  which  the  reasoning  of 
this  pamphlet  may  be  turned  against  its  own  con- 
clusions, though,  in  fact,  we  have  done  the  work 
too  respectably. 

We  cannot  forget,  if  M.  de  Laveleye  does,  that, 
of  all  sciences,  the  social — if,  indeed,  it  may  be  said 
as  yet  to  exist  at  all — is  the  most  complex  and  the 
most  difficult  to  master.  The  phenomena  which  it 
presents  for  observation  are  so  various,  so  manifold, 
and  so  vast,  our  means  of  observation  are  so  limited, 
our  methods  so  unsatisfactory,  and  our  prejudices 
so  fatal,  that  only  the  thoughtless  or  the  rash  will 
tread  without  suspicion  or  doubt  upon  ground  so 
uncertain  and  so  little  explored. 

M.  de  Laveleye  himself  furnishes  us  an  example 
of  how  easily  we  may  go  astray,  even  when  the  way 
seems  plain. 

"  Sectarian    passions,"  he   writes,"    "  or   anti-re- 

*p.  II. 
9 


98  hifiuence  of  Catholicism  and 

ligious  prejudice  have  been  too  often  imported 
into  the  study  of  these  questions.  It  is  time  that 
we  should  apply  to  it  the  method  of  observation 
and  the  scientific  impartiality  of  the  physiologist 
and  the  naturalist.  When  the  facts  are  once  estab- 
lished, irrefragable  conclusions  will  follow.  It  is 
admitted  that  the  Scotch  and  Irish  are  of  the  same 
origin.  Both  have  become  subject  to  the  English 
yoke.  Until  the  sixteenth  century  Ireland  was  much 
more  civijized  than  Scotland.  During  the  first  part 
of  the  middle  ages  the  Emerald  Isle  was  a  focus  of 
civilization,  while  Scotland  was  still  a  den  of  barba- 
rians. Since  the  Scotch  have  embraced  the  Re- 
formation, they  have  outrun  even  the  English.  .  .  . 
Ireland,  on  the  other  hand,  devoted  to  ultramon- 
tanism,  is  poor,  miserable,  agitated  by  the  spirit  of 
rebellion,  and  seems  incapable  of  raising  herself  by 
her  own  strength."  The  conclusion  which  is  drawn 
from  all  this,  joined  with  such  other  facts  as  the 
late  victories  of  Prussia  over  Austria  and  France,  is 
that  "  Protestantism  is  more  favorable  than  Catho- 
licism to  the  development  of  nations." 

We  may  as  well  pause  to  examine  this  passage, 
which,  both  with  regard  to  the  statement  of  facts 
and  to  the  interpretation  put  upon  them,  fairly 
represents  the  style  and  method  of  the  pamphlet 
before  us. 

"  It  is  admitted  that  the  Scotch  and  Irish  are  of 
the  same  origin."  This  is  true,  as  here  stated, 
only  in  the  sense  that  both  are  descended  of  Adam  ; 
and  hence  it  would  have  been  as  much  to  the  point 
to  aflRrm  that  all  the  nations  of  the   earth  are  of 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.     99 

the  same  origin.  The  Scots  were,  indeed,  an  Irish 
tribe  ;  but  when  they  invaded  Caledonia,  tliey 
found  it  in  the  possession  of  the  Picts,  of  whom 
whether  they  were  of  Celtic  or  Teutonic  race  is  still 
undecided.  The  inhabitants  of  the  Scotch  low- 
lands are  chiefly  of  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  and  it  is 
almost  exclusively  among  them  that  the  progress 
of  which  our  author  speaks  is  noticeable.  The 
Highlanders,  who  are  of  Celtic  race,  had  made  but 
little  advancement  in  wealth  and  civilization  so  late 
as  the  beginning  of  the  last  century.  There  is  con- 
sequently no  meaning  or  point  in  this  comparison 
between  the  Scotch  and  Irish,  since  it  is  based  upor< 
a  manifestly  false  assumption. 

"  Until  the  sixteenth  century,"  continues  M.  de 
Laveleye,  "  Ireland  was  much  mora  civilized  than 
Scotland.  During  the  first  part  of  the  middle  ages 
the  Emerald  Isle  was  a  focus  of  civilization,  while 
Scotland  was  still  a  den  of  barbarians."  Now,  it 
was  precisely  in  those  ages  in  which  Ireland  was  "  a 
focus  of  civilization  "  that  the  Catholic  faith  pf  her 
people  shone  brightest.  It  was  then  that  convents 
sprang  up  over  the  whole  island  ;  that  the  sweet 
songs  of  sacred  psalmody,  which  so  touched  the 
soul  of  Columba,  were  heard  in  her  groves  and 
vales  ;  that  the  sword  was  sheathed,  and  all  her 
people  were  smitten  with  the  high  love  of  holy  life 
and  were  eager  to  drink  at  the  fountains  of  know- 
ledge. It  was  then  that  she  sent  her  apostles  to 
Scotland,  to  England,  to  France,  to  Germany,  to 
Switzerland,  and  to  far-off  Sicily  ;  nor  did  she  remit 
her  efforts  in  behalf  of  civilization  until  the  invad- 


I  oo  Iiijliicucc  of  Catholicism  and 

ing  Danes  forced  her  children  to  defend  at  once 
their  country  and  their  faith. 

But  let  us  follow  M.  de  Laveleye  :  "  Since  the 
Scotch  have  embraced  the  reformed  religion,  they 
have  outrun  even  the  English.  .  .  .  Ireland,  on  the 
other  hand,  devoted  to  ultramontanism,  is'  poor, 
miserable,  agitated  by  the  spirit  of  rebellion,  and 
seems  incapable  of  raising  herself  by  her  own 
strerngth.'' 

We  cannot  think  that  Mr.  Gladstone  had  read 
this  passage  when  he  requested  the  author  to  have 
his  pamphlet  translated  into  English;  for  we  cannot 
believe  that  he  is  prepared  to  lay  the  misfortunes 
of  Ireland  to  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  faith 
upon  her  people,  and  not  to  the  cruelty  and  mis- 
government  of  England. 

The  Irish  Catholics  are  reproached  with  their 
poverty,  when  for  two  hundred  years  the  English 
government  made  it  a  crime  for  them  to  own  any- 
thing. They  are  taunted  with  their  misery,  when 
for  t^vo  centuries  they  lived  under  a  code  which 
placed  them  outside  the  pale  of  humanity  ;  of  which 
Lord  Brougham  said  that  it  was  so  ingeniously 
contrived  that  an  Irish  Catholic  could  not  lift  up 
his  hand  without  breaking  it  ;  which  Edmund 
Burke  denounced  as  the  most  proper  machine  ever 
invented  by  the  wit  of  man  to  disgrace  a  realm  and 
degrade  a  people  ;  and  of  which  Montesquieu  wrote 
that  it  must  have  been  contrived  by  devils,  ought 
to  have  been  written  in  blood  and  registered  in 
hell  ! 

Ireland  is  found  fault  with  because  she  is  agitated 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   loi 

by  the  spirit  of  rebellion,  when  even  to  think  of  the 
wrongs  she  has  suffered  makes  the  blood  to  boil. 
Is  it  astonishing  that  she  should  be  poor  Avhen  Eng- 
land, with  set  purpose,  destroyed  her  commerce 
and  rained  her  manufacturing  interests,  fostering 
at  the  same  time  a  policy  fatal  to  agriculture,  the 
aim  of  which,  it  would  seem,  was  to  force  the  Irish 
to  emigrate,  that  the  whole  island  might  be  turned 
into  a  grazing  ground  for  the  supply  of  the  English 
markets  ? 

"What  a  contrast,"  further  remarks  M.  de  Lave- 
leye,*  "  even  in  Ireland,  between  the  exclusively 
Catholic  Connaught,  and  Ulster,  where  Protestant- 
ism prevails !" 

Mr.  Gladstone  certainly  cannot  be  surprised  at 
this  contrast,  nor  will  he  seek  its  explanation  in  the 
baneful  influence  of  the  Catholic  Church.  He  at 
least  knows  the  history  of  Cromwell's  invasion  of 
Ireland  ;  he  has  read  of  the  massacres  of  Drogheda 
and  Wexford  ;  he  knows  the  fate  of  the  eighty  thou- 
sand Catholic  Irishmen  whom  Cromwell  drove  into 
the  ports  of  Munster,  and  shipped  like  cattle  to  the 
sugar  plantations  of  the  Barbadoes,  there  to  be 
sold  as  slaves;  nor  is  he  ignorant  of  what  was  in 
store  for  those  Irish  Catholics  who  were  still  left  ; 
of  how  they  were  driven  out  of  Ulster,  Munster, 
and  Leinster  across  the  Shannon  into  Connaught — 
that  is,  into  the  bogs  and  wild  wastes  of  the  most 
desolate  part  of  Ireland — there  to  die  of  hunger  or 
cold,  or  to  survive  as  best  they  might.  Five-sixths  of 
the  Catholics  had  perished  ;  the  remainder  were  driv- 

*  p.  12. 


I02  Iii/ltieiicc  oj  CatJiolicism  and 

en  into  barren  Connaught ;  the  Protestants  settled  on 
the  rich  lands  of  Ulster,  Munster,  and  Leinster  ;  and 
now  here  comes  good  M.  de  Laveleye  to  find  that 
Connaught  is  poor  because  it  is  Catholic,  and  Ul- 
ster is  rich  because  it  is  Protestant.  But  we  must 
not  forget  Scotland. 

"  Since  the  Scotch,"  says  M.  de  Laveleye,  "  have 
embraced  the  reformed  religion,  they  have  outrun 
even  the  English." 

We  shall  take  no  pains  to  discover  whether  or  in 
what  respect  or  how  far  the  Scotch  surpass  the  Eng- 
lish. The  meaning  of  the  words  which  we  have 
just  quoted  is  evidently  this  :  The  progress  which 
the  Scotch  have  made  during  the  last  three  centu- 
ries, in  wealth  and  the  other  elements  of  material 
greatness,  must  be  ascribed  to  the  influence  of  the 
Protestant  religion. 

To  avoid  even  the  suspicion  of  unfairness  in  dis- 
cussing this  part  of  the  subject,  we  shall  quote  the 
words  of  an  author  who  devoted  much  time  and  re- 
search to  the  study  of  the  character  and  tendencies 
of  Scotch  Presbyterianism,  and  whose  deeply-rooted 
dislike  of  the  Catholic  Church  is  well  known  : 

"  To  be  poor,"  says  Buckle,*  describing  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Scotch  divines  of  the  seventeenth  centu- 
ry— "  to  be  poor,  dirty,  and  hungry  ;  to  pass  through 
life  in  misery  and  to  leave  it  with  fear  ;  to  be  plagued 
with  boils  and  sores  and  diseases  of  every  kind  ; 
to  be  always  sighing  and  groaning ;  to  have  the 
face  streaming  with  tears  and  the  chest  heaving 
with  sobs  ;  in  a  word,  to   suffer   constant  affliction 

*  History  of  Civilisalian,  vol.  ii.  p.  314, 


Protestantis7n  on  Natio7ial  Prosperity.   103 

and  to  be  tormented  in  all  possible  ways — to  un- 
dergo these  things  was  a  proof  of  goodness  just  as 
the  contrary  was  a  proof  of  evil.  It  mattered  not 
what  a  man  liked,  the  mere  fact  of  his  liking  it 
made  it  sinful.  Whatever  was  natural  was  wrong. 
The  clergy  deprived  the  people  of  their  holidays, 
their  amusements,  their  shows,  their  games,  and 
their  sports ;  they  repressed  every  appearance  of 
joy,  they  forbade  all  merriment,  they  stopped  all 
festivities,  they  choked  up  every  avenue  by  which 
pleasure  could  enter,  and  they  spread  over  the 
country  an  universal  gloom.  Then  truly  did  dark- 
ness sit  on  the  land.  Men  in  their  daily  actions 
and  in  their  very  looks  became  troubled,  melan- 
choly, and  ascetic.  Their  countenance  soured  and 
was  downcast.  Not  only  their  opinions,  but  their 
gait,  their  demeanor,  their  voice,  their  general  as- 
pect, were  influenced  by  that  deadly  blight  which 
nipped  all  that  was  genial  and  warm.  The  way  of 
life  fell  into  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf;  its  tints 
gradually  deepened  ;  its  bloom  faded  and  passed 
off;  its  spring,  its  freshness,  and  its  beauty  were 
gone ;  joy  and  love  either  disappeared  or  Avere 
forced  to  hide  themselves  in  obscure  corners,  until 
at  length  the  fairest  and  most  endearing  parts  of 
our  nature,  being  constantly  repressed,  ceased  to 
bear  fruit  and  seemed  to  be  withered  into  perpetual 
sterility.  Thus  it  was  that  the  national  character 
of  the  Scotch  was  in  the  seventeenth  century  dwarf- 
ed and  mutilated.  .  .  .  They  [the  Scotch  divines] 
sought  to  destroy  not  only  human  pleasures,  but 
human  affections.     They  held  that  our  affections  are 


1 04  Injlucncc  of  Caiholicism.  and 

« 

necessarily  connected  with  our  lusts,  and  that  \vc 
must  therefore  wean  ourselves  from  them  as  earthly 
vanities.  A  Christian  had  no  business  with  love  or 
sympathy.  He  had  his  own  soul  to  attend  to,  and 
that  was  enough  for  him.  Let  him  look  to  him- 
self. On  Sunday,  in  particular,  he  must  never 
think  of  benefiting  others  ;  and  the  Scotch  clergy 
did  not  hesitate  to  teach  the  people  that  on  that 
day  it  was  sinful  to  save  a  vessel  in  distress,  and 
that  it  was  a  proof  of  religion  to  leave  ship  and 
crew  to  perish.  They  might  go  :  none  but  their 
wives  and  children  would  suffer,  and  that  was  no- 
thing in  comparison  with  breaking  the  Sabbath. 
So,  too,  did  the  clergy  teach  that  on  no  occasion 
must  food  or  shelter  be  given  to  a  starving  man,  un- 
less his  opinions  were  orthodox.  What  need  for 
him  to  live  ?  Indeed,  they  taught  that  it  was  a  sin 
to  tolerate  his  notions  at  all,  and  that  the  proper 
course  was  to  visit  him  with  sharp  and  immediate 
punishment.  Going  yet  farther,  they  broke  the  do- 
mestic ties  and  set  parents  against  their  offspring. 
They  taughf  the  father  to  smite  the  unbelieving 
child,  and  to  slay  his  own  boy  sooner  than  to  allow 
him  to  propagate  error.  As  if  this  were  not  enough, 
they  tried  to  extirpate  another  affection,  even  more 
sacred  and  more  devoted  still.  They  laid  their 
rude  and  merciless  hands  on  the  holiest  passion  of 
which  our  nature  is  capable — the  love  of  a  mother 
for  her  son.  .  .  .  To  hear  of  such  things  is 
enough  to  make  one's  blood  surge  again,  and  raise  a 
tempest  in  our  inmost  nature.  But  to  have  seen 
them,  to  have  lived  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  yet 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.  105 

not  to  have  rebelled  against  them,  is  to  us  utterly 
inconceivable,  and  proves  in  how  complete  a  thral- 
dom the  Scotch  were  held,  and  how  thoroughly 
their  minds  as  well  as  their  bodies  were  en- 
slaved." 

The  seventeenth  century,  which  was  the  golden 
age  of  French  literature,  and  also  of  the  Catholic 
Church  in  France,  threw  almost  total  darkness  over 
Scotland,  which  during  that  period  was  most  com- 
pletely under  the  power  of  Protestantism.  The 
clergy  governed  the  nation  ;  they  were  the  only 
men  of  real  influence ;  and  yet  there  was  no  philo- 
sophy, no  science,  no  poetry,  no  literature  worth 
reading.  "  From  the  Restoration,"  says  Laing, 
**  down  to  the  Union  the  only  author  of  any  emi- 
nence whom  Scotland  produced  was  Burnet.' 

If  the  thrift  and  industry  of  the  Scotch  are  due 
to  Protestantism,  to  what  shall  we  ascribe  the  en- 
terprise and  commerce  of  the  Catholic  republics  of 
Venice  and  Genoa  during  the  middle  ages?     - 

If  England's  wealth  to-day  comes  from  the  Re- 
formation, how  shall  we  account  for  that  of  Spain 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  ?  And 
if  the  decline  of  Spain  has  been  brought  about  by 
the  Catholic  faith,  to  what  cause  shall  we  assign 
that  of  Holland,  who  in  the  seventeenth  century 
ruled  the  seas  and  did  the  carrying  trade  of 
Europe  ? 

M.  de  Laveleye's  way  of  accounting  for  the  pros- 
perity of  nations  is  certainly  simple,  but  we  doubt 
whether  it  would  satisfy  any  respectable  school-boy. 
Unfortunately  for  such  as  he,  there  is  no  rule  of 
■  9 


io6  Influence  of  Catholicism  a?id 

three  by  which  social  problems  may  be  solved. 
Race,  climate,  soil,  political  organization,  and  many 
other  causes,  working  through  every-varying  com- 
binations, must  all  be  considered  if  we  would  un- 
derstand the  history  of  material  progress.  As  labor 
is  the  most  fruitful  cause  of  wealth,  there  is  a  ne- 
cessary relation  between  national  wealth  and  nation- 
al habits,  which  are  the  outcome  of  a  thousand  in- 
fluences, one  of  the  most  powerful  of  which  un- 
doubtedly is  religious  faith.  But  who  does  not 
know  that  climate  influences  labor,  not  only  by 
enervating  or  invigorating  the  laborer,  but  also 
by  the  effect  it  produces  on  the  regularity  of  his 
habits?  If  the  Italian  loves  the  dolce  far  nicntCy 
while  the  New-Englander  makes  haste  to  grow  rich 
as  though  some  demon  whom  gold  could  bribe  pur- 
sued him,  shall  we  find  the  secret  of  their  peculiar 
characters  in  their  religious  faith  or  in  the  climate 
in  which  they  live,  or  shall  we  not  rather  seek  it  in 
a  combination  of  causes,  physical  and  moral  ?  We 
have  assuredfy  no  thought  of  denying  the  intimate 
connection  which  exists  between  faith  and  charac- 
ter or  between  a  nation's  religion  and  its  civiliza- 
tion. We  are  willing  even  to  affirm  that  not  only 
the  general  superiority  of  Christian  nations,  but 
their  superior  wealth  also,  is  in  great  measure  attri- 
butable to  their  religion.  And  now,  bidding  adieu 
to  M.  de  Laveleye  for  a  while,  we  propose  to  dis- 
cuss this  subject,  to  which  we  have  already  alluded, 
somewhat  more  fully. 

Christianity  certainly  does  not  measure  either  the 
greatness  or  the  happiness  of  a  people  by  its  wealth, 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.  107 

nor  does  it  take  as  its  ideal  that  state  of  society  in 
which  "  the  millionaire  is  the  one  sole  god  "  and 
commerce  is  all  in  all ;  in  which  *'  only  the  ledger 
lives,  and  only  not  all  men  lie." 

Whether  we  consider  individuals  or  associations 
of  men,  the  Catholic  Church  does  not  hold  and  can- 
not hold  that  material  interests  are  the  highest.  To 
be  noble,  to  be  true,  to  be  humble,  to  be  pure,  is,  in 
her  view,  better  than  to  be  rich.  Man  is  more  than 
money,  Avhich  is  good  only  in  so  far  as  it  serves  to 
develop  his  higher  nature. 

"  The  whole  aim  of  man  is  to  be  happy,"  says 
Bossuet.  "  Place  happiness  where  it  ought  to  be, 
and  it  is  the  source  of  all  good  ;  but  the  source  of 
all  evil  is  to  place  it  where  it  ought  not  to  be." 

"  It  is  evident,"  says  St.  Thomas,  "  that  the  hap- 
piness of  man  cannot  lie  in  riches.  Wealth  is 
sought  after  only  as  a  support  of  human  life.  It 
cannot  be  the  end  of  man  ;  on  the  contrary,  man  is 
its  end.  .  .  .  The  longing,  moreover,  for  the 
highest  good  is  infinite.  The  more  it  is  possessed, 
the  more  it  is  loved  and  the  more  all  else  is  despis- 
ed ;  for  the  more  it  is  possessed,  the  better  is  it 
known.  With  riches  this  is  not  the  case.  No  soon- 
er are  they  ours  than  they  are  despised,  or  used  as 
means  to  some  other  end ;  and  this,  as  it  shows 
their  imperfect  nature,  is  proof  tjiat  in  them  the 
highest  good  is  not  to  be  found." 

If  wealth  is  not  the  highest  good  of  individuals, 
is  it  of  nations?  What  is  the  ideal  of  society? 
The  study  of  the  laws  which  govern  national  life 
must    necessarily  begin   with    this  question,  which 


1 08  Influence  of  Catholicis^n  and 

all  who  have  dealt  with  the  subject,  from  Plato  to 
Comte  and  Mill,  have  sought  to  answer.  It  is  mani- 
fest that  each  one's  attempt  to  solve  this  problem 
will  be  based  upon  his  views  on  the  previous  ques- 
tion :  What  is  the  ideal  of  man  ?  This,  in  turn,  will 
be  answered  according  to  each  one's  notions  of  the 
ideal  of  God  ;  and  here  we  have  the  secret  of  the 
phenomenon  which  so  surprised  Proudhon — the 
necessary  connection  between  religion  and  society, 
theology  and  politics. 

Is  there  a  God,  personal,  distinct  from  nature? 
Or  is  nature  the  only  god,  and  science  her  prophet  ? 
It  is  just  here  at  this  central  point  that  men  are 
dividing  ;  it  is  here  we  must  place  ourselves,  if  we 
would  view  the  two  great  armies  that  in  all  Chris- 
tendom are  gathering  for  a  supreme  conflict. 

There  is  a  form  of  infidelity  in  our  day — and  it 
is  the  one  into  which  all  unbelief  must  ultimately 
resolve  itself — which  starts  with  this  assumption  : 
Whether  or  not  there  is  a  God  must  for  ever  re- 
main unknown  to  man.  It  reasons  in  this  way  : 
This  whole  subject  belongs  within  the  region,  not 
only  of  the  unknown,  but  of  the  unknowable.  It  is 
an  insoluble  riddle,  and  the  philosophies  and  theo- 
logies which  have  sought  to  unravel  it,  if  only  idle, 
might  deserve  nothing  more  than  contempt ;  but 
they  have  been  the  bane  of  human  thought,  have 
soured  all  the  sweetness  of  life,  and  therefore  ought 
to  be  visited  with  the  execration  of  mankind.  Since 
religion  is  a  subject  about  which  nothing  can  be 
known,  what  is  so  absurd  as  to  spend  time  upon  it? 
WHiat  so  absurd  as  to  divert  the  thoucrhts  of  men 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.  109 

from  subjects  in  which  thinking  is  fruitful  to  those 
in  which  it  must  for  ever  remain  barren  of  all  ex- 
cept evil  results?  What  so  absurd  as  to  set  them 
working  for  a  future  life,  of  which  we  can  never 
know  whether  it  exists  at  all,  when  we  might  at 
least  teach  them  how  to  make  the  present  one 
worth  having?  The  paradise  of  the  future,  which 
the  prophetic  eye  of  science  can  already  descry,  is 
///  the  world,  not  beyond  it  ;  and  to  seek  to  hasten 
its  approach  is  the  highest  and  only  worthy  object 
in  life.  As  we  take  it,  this  is  the  creed  of  modern 
unbelief,  to  which  as  yet  few  will  openly  subscribe^ 
but  toward  which  all  its  hundred  conflicting  schools 
of  thought  are  moving.  Few  men  indeed  are  able 
to  perceive  the  logical  outcome  of  their  opinions, 
and  still  fewer  have  the  courage  to  confess  what 
they  more  than  half  suspect. 

This  superstition  is  a  return  to  the  nature-wor- 
ship of  paganism,  but  under  a  different  aspect.  Of 
old,  nature  was  worshipped  as  revealed  to  sense, 
and  now  as  revealed  to  thought  ;  then  as  beautiful, 
now  as  true  or  useful.  The  first  was  artistic,  and 
form  was  its  symbol;  the  last  is  scientific,  and  law 
is  its  expression.  The  religion  of  humanity  is  a 
phase  of  this  worship  ;  for  in  it  man  is  considered, 
not  as  the  child  of  God,  but  as  the  product  of 
nature. 

And  now  what  has  this  to  do  with  the  ideal  of 
society  or  the  wealth  of  nations?  At  the  basis  of 
all  social  organization  lies  morality,  as  it  is  by  con- 
duct that  both  individuals  and  nations  are  saved  or 
lost.      The  history  of  the   human    race  shows  that 


I  lo  Injiiieticc  of  Catholicism  and 

religion  and  morality  are  intimately  related.  That 
there  have  been  good  atheists  does  not  affect  the 
truth  of  this  proposition  any  more  than  that  there 
have  been  bad  Christians.  Men  are  usually  better 
or  worse  than  their  principles  ;  practice  and  profes- 
sion rarely  accord  ;  and  this  is  remarked  because 
it  ought  not  to  exist. 

Conduct,  to  be  rational,  should  be  motived,  and 
consequently  referable  to  certain  general  principles 
by  which  it  is  justified.  To  be  particular,  a  man 
who  believes  in  God,  the  Creator,  a  P'ather  as  just 
as  he  is  good,  has  fundamental  motives  of  action 
which  are  wanting  to  the  atheist.  The  one  should 
seek  to  approve  himself  to  his  heavenly  Father  ; 
the  other  cannot  go  farther  than  conform  to  the 
laws  of  nature.  To  the  one  this  life,  as  compared 
with  that  which  is  to  be,  is  of  value  only  as  it 
relates  to  it  ;  to  the  other  it  is  all  in  all.  And  since 
the  ultimate  end  of  society  is  the  welfare  of  the 
associated,  the  one  will  regard  this  end  from  a 
transcendental  point  of  view,  taking  in  time  and 
eternity  ;  the  other  will  consider  it  merely  with  re- 
ference to  man's  present  state.  Their  notions  of 
life,  of  its  ends,  aims,  and  proper  surroundings,  will 
be  radically  different. 

Suppose  for  a  moment  that  religious  beliefs  are 
mere  dreams,  fancies  of  sick  brains  ;  is  it  not  at 
once  manifest  that  human  life  is  a  much  poorer  and 
sorrier  thing  than  it  is  commonly  thought  to  be  ? 
As  the  light  of  heaven  fades  away,  do  not  all  things 
grow  dark,  leaving  us  in  the  shadow  of  death,  de- 
spairing   or    debauched,    sullen    or    frantic  ?      The 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.  1 1 1 

poet's  dream,  the  mother's  fond  hope,  the  heart's 
deep  yearning,  the  mind's  flight  towards  the  infi- 
nite— all  become  flat,  meaningless,  and  unprofitable. 
Men  are  simply  animals  chained  to  this  clod,  too 
happy  if  the  heaven-seeking  eye  permitted  them  to 
see  it  alone.  Trouble,  danger,  and  physical  pain 
are  the  only  evils,  and  virtue  is  the  sharp-sighted 
prudence  which  enables  us  to  avoid. them.  Self- 
denial  is  not  only  useless,  it  is  irrational.  Our  ap- 
petites are  good  and  ought  to  be  indulged.  Noth- 
ing, of  its  own  nature,  is  sinful ;  excess  alone  is 
wrong  ;  all  indulgence,  provided  it  hurt  no  one,  is 
good — nay,  it  is  necessary.  Whoever  denies  any 
one  of  his  appetites  the  food  it  craves  cripples  him- 
self, is  maimed  and  incomplete.  "  He  may  be  a 
monk  ;  he  may  be  a  saint ;  but  a  man  he  is  not." 

When  these  views  are  transferred  to  questions  of 
political  economy  and  social  organization,  they  lead 
to  materialistic  and  utilitarian  theories.  Society 
must  be  organized  on  the  basis  of  positivism  ;  the 
problem  of  the  future  is  how  to  give  to  the  greatest 
number  of  individuals  the  best  opportunities  of  in- 
dulgence, the  greatest  amount  of  comfort,  with  the 
least  amount  of  pain.  This  is  the  greatest-happi- 
ness principle  of  Bentham  and  Mill.  Culture,  of 
course,  intellectual  and  aesthetic,  as  afibrding  the 
purest  pleasure,  must  form  a  feature  of  this  society  ; 
but  its  distinctive  characteristic  is  wealth,  which  is 
both  the  means  and  the  opportunity  of  indulgence. 

"  We  constantly  hear  of  the  evils  of  wealth,"  says 
Buckle,  "  and  of  the  sinfulness  of  loving  money  ; 
although  it  is  certain  that,  after  the  love  of  know- 


1 1  2  Injiiietice  of  Catholicism  and 

ledge,  there  is  no  one  passion  which  has  done  so 
much  good  to  mankind  as  the  love  of  money." 

"  If  we  open  our  eyes,"  says  Strauss,*  "  and  are 
honest  enough  to  avow  what  they  show  us,  we 
must  acknowledge  that  the  entire  activity  and  aspi- 
ration of  the  civih'zed  nations  of  our  time  is  based 
on  views  of  life  which  run  directly  counter  to  those 
entertained  by  Christ.  The  ratio  of  value  between 
the  here  and  the  hereafter  is  exactly  reversed ;  and 
this  is  by  no  means  the  result  of  the  merely  luxu- 
rious and  so-called  materialistic  tendencies  of  our 
age,  nor  even  of  its  marvellous  progress  in  technical 
and  industrial  improvements.  .  .  .  All  that  is  best 
and  happiest  which  has  been  achieved  by  us  has 
been  attainable  only  on  the  basis  of  a  conception 
which  regarded  this  present  world  as  by  no  means 
despicable,  but  rather  as  man's  proper  field  of 
labor,  as  the  sum  total  of  the  aims  to  which  his 
efforts  should  be  directed.  If,  from  the  force  of 
habit,  a  certain  proportion  of  workers  in  this  field 
still  carry  the  belief  in  an  hereafter  along  with  them, 
it  is  nevertheless  a  mere  shadow,  which  attends 
their  footsteps  without  exercising  any  determining 
influence  on  their  actions." 

This  is  the  cosmic  religion,  v/hich  is  preached  as 
"  the  new  faith,  the  religion  of  the  future."  This 
world  is  all  in  all — let  us  make  the  most  of  it  ;  or, 
as  the  pagans  of  old  put  it :  "  Let  us  eat  and  drink, 
for  to-morrow  we  die." 

In  its  essence  it  is  sensualism  ;  in  its  manifesta- 


•  Thf  Chi  Faith  and  the  New,  p.  86. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.  1 1 3 

tions  it  will  be  refined  or  coarse,  according  to  the 
dispositions  of  the  persons  by  whom  it  is  accepted. 
Now  its  worship  will  be  accompanied  with  music 
and  song  and  dance  ;  at  other  times  it  will  sink  to 
those  orgies  in  which  man  becomes  only  an  unna- 
tural animal. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  Christian  religion,  and 
consider  its  teachings  in  their  bearing  upon  the 
i^ubject  we  are  discussing.  They  are  the  very  op- 
posite of  those  which  we  have  just  read,  and  pro- 
ceed from  principles  which  are  in  direct  contradic- 
tion to  the  cosmic  philosophy.  God  is  the  highest, 
the  Creator  of  all  things,  Avhich  are  of  value  only  as 
they  relate  to  him  and  are  in  harmony  with  the 
laws  of  his  being.  The  earth  is  but  the  threshold 
of  heaven  or  of  hell,  as  the  case  may  be.  This  life 
is  a  preparation  for  a  future  one,  which  is  eternal ; 
and  all  human  interests,  whether  individual  or 
social,  to  be  rightly  understood,  must  be  viewed  in 
their  relation  to  this  truth.  Man  is  essentially  a 
moral  being,  and  duty,  which  is  often  in  conflict 
with  pleasure,  is  his  supreme  law.  He  is  under  the 
action  of  antagonistic  forces  ;  seeing  the  better  and 
approving  it,  he  is  drawn  to  love  the  worse  and  to 
do  it.  Thus  self-denial  becomes  the  condition  of 
virtue,  and  warfare  with  himself  his  only  assurance 
of  victory. 

"  But  he  said  to  all :  If  any  one  wishes  to  come 
after  me,  let  him  deny  himself,  take  up  his  cross 
every  day,  and  follow  me." 

Wealth,  which  is  the  world's  great  slave  and  idol, 
and   universal  procurator  of  the  senses,  though  in 


1 14  Injlucnce  of  CaiJiolicism  and 

itself  not  evil,  is  yet  a  hindrance  to  the  highest 
spiritual  life.  "  If  thou  wouldst  be  perfect,  go  sell 
what  thou  hast,  and  give  it  to  the  poor,  and  thou 
shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven  :  and  come  and  fol- 
low me." 

As  duty  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  individual,  it 
follows  that  we  must  seek  the  ideal  of  society  in 
the  moral  order,  to  which  all  other  social  interests 
should  be  made  subservient,  or  else  they  will  beget 
only  an  unbounded  and  lawless  activity.  Even 
education  is  valuable  only  in  so  far  as  it  gives  man 
a  deeper  sense  of  his  responsibility  to  God,  and 
enables  him  more  thoroughly  to  understand  and 
perform  his  duty. 

The  social  problem  as  between  Christianity  and 
modern  paganism  may  be  stated  in  this  way:  is  it 
the  end  of  society  to  grow  strong  in  virtue  through 
self-denial,  or  to  increase  indefinitely  the  means 
and  opportunity  of  indulgence  ?  On  which  side  is 
progress,  on  which  decline  ? 

We  cannot  now  go  farther  into  this  subject,  but 
before  leaving  it  we  wish  to  quote  the  words  of 
Fitzjames  Stephen,  who  will  hardly  be  called  a 
Christian,  on  modern  progress. 

"  I  suspect,"  he  says,*  "  that  in  many  ways  it  has 
been  a  progress  from  strength  to  weakness  ;  that 
people  are  more  sensitive,  less  enterprising  and 
ambitious,  less  earnestly  desirous  to  get  what  they 
want,  and  more  afraid  of  pain,  both  for  themselves 
and  others,  than  they  used  to  be.     If  this  should 

*  Liberty,  Egitality,  Fraternity,  p.  110. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.  1 1 5 

be  so,  it  appears  to  me  that  all  other  gains,  whether 
in  wealth,  knowledge,  or  humanity,  afford  no  equiva- 
lent. Strength,  in  all  its  forms,  is  life  and  man- 
hood. To  be  less  strong  is  to  be  less  a  man,  what- 
ever else  you  may  be.  This  suspicion  prevents  me, 
for  one,  from  feeling  any  enthusiasm  about  pro- 
gress, but  I  do  not  undertake  to  say  it  is  well 
founded.  ...  I  do  not  myself  see  that  our  me- 
chanical inventions  have  increased  the  general  vigor 
of  men's  characters,  though  they  have  no  doubt 
increased  enormously  our  control  over  nature.  The 
greater  part  of  our  humanity  appears  to  me  to  be  a 
mere  increase  of  nervous  sensibility,  in  which  I  feel 
no  satisfaction  at  all." 

The  general  superiority,  and  even  the  greater 
wealth,  of  Ciiristian  nations  as  compared  with 
others  we  would  attribute,  in  great  part  at  least,  to 
the  influence  of  their  religious  faith,  to  which  they 
owe  their  sentiments  on  the  dignity  and  sacredness 
of  human  nature  in  itself,  apart  from  surroundings  ; 
on  the  substantial  equality  of  all  men  before  God, 
which  tends  to  produce  as  its  counterpart  the 
equality  of  all  before  the  law,  thus  leading  to  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  the  elevation  of  woman,  and 
the  protection  of  childhood.  To  it  also  they  owe 
their  ideas  on  the  family,  which,  in  its  constitutive 
Christian  elements,  lies  at  the  very  foundation  of 
our  civilization.  To  Christianity  they  owe  the 
principles  of  universal  charity  and  compassion, 
which  have  revolutionized  the  relations  of  social 
life  ;  and,  finally,  to  it  they  are  indebted  for  the 
rehabilitation  of  labor,  the  chief  source  of  wealth, 


1 1 6  Inflncnce  of  Caiholia'sin  and 

which    the  pagan   nations  looked  upon  as  degrad- 
ing. 

"  I  cannot  say,"  writes  Herodotus,  "  whether  the 
Greeks  get  their  contempt  for  hibor  from  the  Egyp- 
tians ;  for  I  find  the  same  prejudice  among  the. 
Thracians,  the  Scythians,  the  Persians,  and  the 
Lydians." 

"The  Germans,"  says  Tacitus,  "cannot  bear  to 
remain  quiet,  but  they  love  to  be  idle  ;  they  hold 
it  base  and  unworthy  of  them  to  acquire  by  their 
sweat  what  they  can  purchase  with  their  blood." 
In  the  same  way  the  Gauls  looked  upon  labor  wi-th 
contempt. 

We  shall  have  to  take  up  M.  de  Laveleye's 
pamphlet  again  ;  for  the  present  we  lay  it  aside 
with  the  following  remark  :  If  we  should  grant,  to 
the  fullest,  all  that  is  here  said  about  the  greater 
wealth  and  material  prosperity  of  Protestant  as  com- 
pared with  Catholic  nations,  what  are  we  thence  to 
conclude?  Shall  we  say  that  the  greed  of  gain 
which  is  so  marked  a  feature  in  the  populations  of 
England  and  the  United  States  is  at  once  the  result 
and  proof  of  true  Christian  faith  ?  May  it  not  be 
barely  possible  that  the  value  of  material  progress 
is  exaggerated  ?  Is  there  not  danger  lest,  when 
man  shall  have  made  matter  the  willing  slave  of  all 
his  passions,  he  should  find  that  he  has  become  the 
creature  of  this  slave  ?  However  this  may  be, 
might  not  a  Catholic  find  some  consolation  in  the 
words  of  Holy  Writ  ? 

"  And  the  angel  that  spoke  in  me,  said  to  me  : 
Cry  thou,  saying,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts  :   I 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   117 

am  zealous  for  Jerusalem  and  Sion  with  a  great  zeal. 
And  I  am  angry  ivith  a  great  anger  zvith  the  nations 
that  are  rich;  for  I  was  angry  a  little,  but  they 
helped  forward  the  evil." 


COMPARATIVE  INFLUENCE  OF  CATHO- 
LICISM AND  PROTESTANTISM  ON  NA- 
TIONAL  PROSPERITY. 

II.     EDUCATION. 


NE  of  the  most  mischievous  prejudices 
of  our  day  is  the  popular  theory  that 
the  cure  for  all  evils  is  to  be  sought  in 
the  intellectual  education  of  the  masses. 
Those  nations,  we  are  told  by  every  declaimer, 
in  which  the  education  of  the  people  is  most  uni- 
versal, are  the  most  moral,  the  richest,  the  strongest, 
the  freest,  and  their  prosperity  rests  upon  the 
most  solid  and  lasting  foundation.  Make  igno- 
rance a  crime,  teach  all  to  read  and  write,  and  war 
will  smooth  its  rugged  front,  armies  will  be  dis- 
banded, corruption  will  disappear,  and  mankind 
will  have  found  the  secret  of  uninterrupted  pro- 
gress, the  final  outcome  of  which  will  surpass  evew 
our  fondest  dreams. 

This  fallacy,  which  has  not  even  the  merit  of 
being  plausible,  is,  of  course,  made  to  do  service  in 
M.  de  Laveleye's  pamphlet  on  the  comparative 
bearing  of  Protestantism  and  Catholicism  on  the 
prosperity  of  nations. 


*  Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   1 1 9 

"  It  is  now  universally  admitted,"  he  informs 
us,"^^'  "  that  the  diffusion  of  enlightenment  is  the 
first  condition  of  progress.  .  .  .  The  general  spread 
of  education  is  also  indispensable  to  the  exercise  of 
constitutional  liberty.  ...  In  short,  education  is 
the  basis  of  national  liberty  and  prosperity." 

He  then  declares  that  in  this  matter  of  popular 
education  Protestant  countries  are  far  in  advance 
of  those  that  are  Catholic  ;  that  this  is  necessarily  so, 
since  *'  the  Reformed  religion  rests  on  a  book — the 
Bible  ;  the  Protestant,  therefore,  must  know  how  to 
read.  Catholic  worship,  on  the  contrary,  rests  upon 
sacraments  and  certain  practices — such  as  confes- 
sion, Masses,  sermons — which  do  not  necessarily 
involve  reading.  It  is,  therefore,  unnecessary  to 
know  how  to  read  ;  indeed,  it  is  dangerous,  for  it 
inevitably  shakes  the  principle  of  passive  obedience 
on  Avhich  the  whole  Catholic  edifice  reposes:  read- 
ing is  the  road  that  leads  to  heresy." 

We  will  first  consider  the  theory,  and  then  take 
up  the  facts. 

"  The  diffusion  of  enlightenment  is  the  first  con- 
dition of  progress.  Education  is  indispensable  to 
the  exercise  of  constitutional  liberty.  Education 
is  the  basis  of  national  liberty  and  prosperity." 

Enlightenment  is,  of  course,  of  the  mind,  and 
means  the  development,  m.ore  or  less  perfect,  of 
the  intellectual  faculties  ;  and  education,  since  it  is 
here  considered  as  synonymous  with  enlightenment, 
must  be  taken  in  this  narrow  sense. 

Progress   is  material,  moral,  intellectual,   social, 
*  p.  22. 


1 20  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

political,  artistic,  religious,  scientific,  literary,  and 
indefinitely  manifold.  Now,  it  is  assumed  that  the 
diffusion  of  enlightenment  is  not  merely  promotive, 
but  that  it  is  an  essential  condition  of  progress  in 
its  widest  and  fullest  meaning.  This  is  the  new 
faith — the  goddess  of  culture,  holding  the  torch  of 
science  and  leading  mankind  into  the  palace  of  plea- 
sure, the  only  true  heaven. 

By  conduct,  we  have  already  said,  both  individ- 
uals and  nations  are  saved  or  perish  ;  and  we  spoke 
of  the  civilized.  Barbarous  states  are  destroyed  by 
catastrophes — they  die  a  violent  death  ;  but  the 
civilized  are  wasted  by  internal  maladies — siiis  et 
ipsa  Roma  viribtis  ritit.  They  grow  and  they  decay, 
they  progress  and  they  decline.  At  first  poverty, 
virtue,  industry,  faith,  hopefulness,  strong  charac- 
ters and  heroic  natures ;  at  last  wealth,  corruption, 
indolence,  unbelief,  despair,  children  too  weak  even 
to  admire  the  strength  of  their  fathers,  too  base  to 
believe  that  they  were  noble.  Public  spirit  dies 
out  ;  patriotism  is  in  the  mouths  of  politicians,  but, 
like  the  augurs  of  Rome,  they  cannot  speak  the 
word  and  look  one  another  in  the  face.  The  coun- 
try is  to  each  one  what  he  can  make  out  of  it,  and 
the  bond  of  union  is  the  desire  of  each  citizen  to 
secure  his  own  interests.  The  bondholders  love  their 
country,  and  the  satisculottes  are  disloyal ;  class  rises 
against  class,  civil  discord  unsettles  everything,  rev- 
olution succeeds  revolution,  and  when  the  barbarian 
comes  he  holds  an  inquest  over  the  corpse.  It  gen- 
erally happens,  too,  that  those  civilizations  which 
spring  up  quickest  and  promise  most  fair  are  fated 


Protesiaiilism  on  Natio7ial  Prosperity.    1 2  i 

to  die  .earliest ;  as  precocious  children  disappoint 
fond  mothers.  If  the  teaching  of  history  is  a  trust- 
worthy guide,  we  are  certainly  safe  in  affirming 
that  civilized  states  and  empires  perish,  not  from 
lack  of  knowledge,  but  of  virtue  ;  not  because  the 
people  are  ignorant,  but  because  they  are  corrupt. 

The  assumption,  however,  is  that  men  become 
immoral  because  they  are  ignorant ;  that  if  they 
were  enlightened,  they  would  be  virtuous. 

"The  superstition,"  says  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,* 
"  that  good  behavior  is  to  be  forthwith  produced 
by  lessons  learned  out  of  books,  which  was  long 
ago  statistically  disproved,  would,  but  for  precon- 
ceptions, be  utterly  dissipated  by  observing  to  what 
a  slight  extent  knowledge  affects  conduct  ;  by  ob- 
serving that  the  dishonesty  implied  in  the  adul- 
terations of  tradesmen  and  manufacturers,  in  frau- 
dulent bankruptcies,  in  bubble  companies,  in  'cook- 
ing '  of  railway  accounts  and  financial  prospectuses, 
differs  only  in  form,  and  not  in  amount,  from  the 
dishonesty  of  the  uneducated  ;  by  observing  how 
amazingly  little  the  teachings  given  to  medical 
students  affect  their  lives,  and  how  even  the  most 
experienced  medical  men  have  their  prudence 
scarcely  at  all  increased  by  their  information." 

It  is  not  knowledge,  but  character,  that  is  impor- 
tant ;  and  character  is  formed  more  by  faith,  by 
hope,  by  love,  admiration,  enthusiasm,  reverence, 
than  by  any  patchwork  of  alphabetical  and  arith- 
metical symbols.  The  young  know  but  little  ;  but 
they  believe  firmly,  they  hope  nobly,  and  love  gen- 

*  Study  of  Sociology,  p.  121. 
10 


1 2  2  Influence  of  CatJiolicism  attd 

crously ;  and  it  is  while  knowledge  is  feeble  and 
these  spontaneous  acts  of  the  soul  are  strong  that 
character  is  moulded.  The  curse  of  our  age  is 
that  men  will  believe  that,  in  education,  to  spell, 
to  read,  to  write,  is  what  signifies,  and  they  cast 
aside  the  eternal  faith,  the  infinite  hope,  the  divine 
love,  that  more  than  all  else  makes  us  men. 

"  The  true  test  of  civilization,"  says  Emerson, 
"  is  not  the  census,  nor  the  size  of  cities,  nor  the 
crops — no,  but  the  kind  of  man  the  country  turns 
out."  Is  there  some  mystic  virtue  in  printed  words 
that  to  be  able  to  read  them  should  make  us  men  ? 
And  even  in  the  most  enlightened  countries  what 
do  the  masses  of  men  know  ?  Next  to  nothing ; 
and  their  reading,  for  the  most  part,  stupefies 
them.  The  newspaper,  with  its  murders,  suicides, 
hangings,  startling  disclosures,  defalcations,  embez- 
zlements, burglaries,  forgeries,  adulteries,  advertise- 
ments of  nostrums,  quack  medicines,  and  secrets  of 
working  death  in  the  very  source  of  life,  with  all 
manner  of  hasty  generalizations,  crude  theories,  and 
half-truths  jumbled  into  intellectual  pot-pourris ; 
the  circulating  library,  with  its  stories,  tales,  roman- 
ces of  love,  despair,  death,  of  harrowing  accidents, 
of  hair-breadth  escapes,  of  successful  crime,  and  all 
the  commonplaces  of  wild,  reckless,  and  unnatural 
life — these  are  the  sources  of  their  knowledge.  Or, 
if  they  are  ambitious,  they  read  **  How  to  get  on  in 
the  world,"  "The  art  of  making  money,"  "The  se- 
cret of  growing  rich,"  "  The  road  to  wealth,"  "  Suc- 
cessful men,"  "  The  millionaires  of  America,"  and 
the  Mammon-worship,  and  the  superstition  of  mat- 


Protestantism  on  National  Pi'ospcrity.    123 

ter,  and  the  idolatry  of  success  become  their  reli- 
gion ;  their  souls  die  within  them,  and  what  wretch- 
ed slaves  they  grow  to  be  ! 

In  the  newspaper  and  circulating  library  God  and 
man,  heaven  and  earth — all  things — are  discussed, 
flippantly,  in  snatches,  generally  ;  all  possible  con- 
flicting and  contradictory  views  are  taken  ;  and 
these  ignorant  masses,  who,  in  the  common  schools, 
have  been  through  the  Fourth  Reader,  and  who 
know  nothing,  not  even  their  own  ignorance,  are 
confused.  They  doubt,  they  lose  faith,  and  are  en- 
lightened by  the  discovery  that  God,  the  soul,  truth, 
justice,  honor,  are  only  nominal — they  do  not  con- 
cern positivists.  Can  anything  be  more  pitiful  than 
the  state  of  these  poor  wretches  ? — neither  knowing 
nor  believing  ;  without  knowledge,  yet  having  nor 
faith  nor  love.  God  pity  them  that  they  are  com- 
munists, internationalists,  solidaircs ;  for  what  else 
could  they  be  ?  No  enthusiasm  is  possible  for  them 
but  that  of  destruction. 

Religion  is  the  chief  element  in  civilization,  and 
consequently  in  progress.  For  the  masses,  even 
though  the  whole  energy  of  mankind  should  spend 
itself  upon  some  or  any  possible  common-school 
system,  the  eternal  principles  which  mould  charac- 
ter, support  manhood,  and  consecrate  humanity  will 
always  remain  of  faith,  and  can  never  be  held  scien- 
tifically. If  it  were  possible  that  science  should 
prove  religion  false,  it  would  none  the  less  remain 
true,  or  there  would  be  no  truth. 

What  children  know  when  they  leave  school  is 
mechanical,  external  to  their  minds,  fitted  on  them 


124  Influence  of  CatJwlicism  and 

like  clothes  on  the  body ;  and  it  is  soon  worn 
threadbare,  and  hangs  in  shreds  and  patches. 
Take  the  first  boy  whom  you  meet,  fourteen  or  fif- 
teen years  old,  fresh  from  the  common  school,  and 
his  ignorance  of  all  real  knowledge  will  surprise 
you.  What  he  knows  is  little  and  of  small  value  : 
what  is  of  moment  is  whether  he  believes  firmly, 
hopes  strongly,  and  loves  truly.  Not  the  diffusion 
of  enlightenment  do  we  want  so  much,  but  the  diffu- 
sion of  character,  of  honest  faith,  and  manly  cour- 
age. 

Man  is  more  than  his  knowledge.  Simple  faith 
is  better  than  reading  and  writing.  And  yet  the 
educational  quacks  treat  the  child  as  though  he 
were  mere  mind,  and  his  sole  business  to  use  it, 
and  chiefly  for  low  ends,  shrewdly  and  sharply, 
with  a  view  to  profit ;  as  though  life  were  a  thing 
of  barter,  and  wisdom  the  art  of  making  the  most 
of  it. 

Poor  child !  who  wouldst  live  by  admiration, 
hope,  and  love,  how  they  dwarf  thy  being,  stunt  thy 
growth,  and  flatten  all  thy  soaring  thoughts  with 
their  dull  commonplaces — thrift,  honesty  is  the  best 
policy,  time  is  money,  knowledge  is  wealth,  and 
all  the  vocabulary  of  a  shop-keeping  and  trading 
philosophy.  Poor  child  !  who  wouldst  look  out  in- 
to the  universe  as  God's  great  temple,  and  behold 
in  all  its  glories  the  effulgence  of  heaven  ;  to  whom 
morning,  noon,  and  night,  and  change  of  season, 
golden  flood  of  day  and  star-lit  gloom,  all  speak  of 
some  diviner  life,  how  they  stun  thy  poetic  soul, 
full  of  high  dreams  and  noble  purposes,  with  their 


Prote  si  autism  07i  National  Prosperity.    125 

cold  teaching  that  man  lives  on  bread  alone — put 
money  in  thy  purse !  And  when  thou  wouldst 
look  back  with  awe  and  reverence  to  the  sacred 
ages  past,  to  the  heroes,  sages,  saints  of  the  olden 
times,  they  come  with  their  gobble  and  tell  thee 
there  were  no  railroads  and  common  schools  in 
those  days. 

^'       Is  it  strange  that  this  education  should  hurt  the 
nation's  highest  interests  by  driving  in  crowds,  like 

-  cattle  to  the  shambles,  our  youths  from  God  and 
nature  and  tilling  of  the  soil  to  town  and  city,  or, 
worse,  into  professions  to  which  only  their  conceit 
or  distaste  for  hard  labor  calls  them  ?  What  place 
for  morality  is  there  in  this  Poor  Richard's  Cate- 
chism— education  of  thrift  and  best  policy?  We, 
grow  in  likeness  to  what  we  love,  not  to  what  we 
know.  With  low  aims  and  selfish  loves  only  nar- 
row and  imperfect  characters  are  compatible. 

Science,  when  cherished  for  itself — which  it  sel- 
dom is  and  in  very  exceptional  cases — refines  and 
purifies  its  lovers,  and  chastens  the  force  of  passion  : 
though  even  here  we  must  admit  that  the  wisest  of 
mankind  may  be  the  meanest,  morally  the  most  un- 
worthy. But  for  the  great  mass  of  men,  even  of 
those  who  are  called  educated,  the  possession  of 
such  knowledge  as  they  have  or  can  have  has  no 
necessary  relation  with  higher  moral  life.  Their 
learning  may  refine,  smooth  over,  or  conceal  their 
sin  ;  it  will  not  destroy  it.  The  furred  gown  and 
intertissued  robe  hide  the  faults  that  peep  through 
beggars'  rags,  but  they  are  there  all  the  same. 
There  may  be  a  substitution  of  pride  for  sensuality, 


1 26  Ivfluence  of  CatJiolicism  and 

or  a  skilful  blending  or  alternation  of  the  finer  with 
the  coarser.  Vice  may  lose  its  grossness,  but  not 
its  evil.  And  herein  we  detect  the  wretched  soph- 
istry of  criminal  statistics,  which  deal,  imperfect- 
ly and  roughly  enough,  with  what  is  open,  shock- 
ing, and  repulsive.  The  hidden  sins  that,  "like  pit- 
ted speck  in  garnered  fruit,"  slowly  eating  to  the  core 
of  a  people's  life,  moulder  all  ;  the  sapping  of  faith, 
the  weakening  of  character,  the  disbelief  in  good- 
ness;  the  luxury,  the  indulgence,  the  heartlessness- 
and  narrowness  of  the  rich  ;  the  cunning  devices 
through  which  "  the  spirit  of  murder"  works  in  the 
very  means  of  life, 

"  While  rank  corruption,  mining  all  within, 
Infects  unseen" 

— cannot  be  appreciated  by  the  gross  tests  of 
numbers  and  averages.  The  poor,  by  statistics  as 
by  the  world,  are  handled  without  gloves.  In  the 
large  cities  of  civilized  countries,  both  in  ancient 
and  in  modern  times,  we  have  unmistakable  proof 
of  what  knowledge  can  do  to  form  character  and 
produce  even  the  social  virtues.  These  populations 
have  had  the  advantage  of  the  best  schools  in  the 
most  favorable  circumstances,  and  yet  in  character 
and  morality  they  are  far  beneath  the  less  educated 
peasantry.  Sensual  indulgence,  contempt  of  au- 
thority, hatred  and  jealousy  of  those  above  them, 
make  these  the  dangerous  classes,  eager  for  social* 
istic  reforms,  radical  upheavals  of  the  whole  exist- 
ing order ;  and  were  it  not  for  the  more  religioq? 
tillers  of  the  soil,  chaos  and  misrule  would  already 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.    127 

prevail.  In  Greece  and  Rome  it  was  in  the  cities 
that  civilization  first  perished,  as  it  was  there  it 
began — began  with  men  who  had  great  faith  and 
strong  character,  but  little  knowledge  ;  perished 
among  men  who  were  learned  and  refined,  but  who 
in  indulgence  and  debauch  had  lost  all  strength  and 
honesty  of  purpose. 

In  the  last  report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Edu- 
cation some  interesting  facts,  bearing  on  the  rela- 
tion of  ignorance  to  crime,  are  taken  from  the 
Forty-fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  inspector  of  the 
State  penitentiary  for  the  Eastern  District  of 
Pennsylvania. 

"  It  is  doubted  if  in  any  State,  or  indeed  in  any 
country,"  says  the  commissioner,  "  forty-four  vol- 
umes containing  the  annual  statistical  tables  relat- 
ing to  the  populations  of  a  penal  institution,  cover- 
ing nearly  half  a  century,  can,  on  examination,  be 
regarded  as  more  complete." 

The  number  of  prisoners  received  into  the  insti- 
tution from  1850  to  i860  was  1,605,  of  whom  15 
per  cent,  were  illiterate,  15  per  cent,  were  able  to 
read,  and  70  per  cent.,  or  more  than  two-thirds, 
knew  how  to  read  and  write  ;  from  i860  to  1870, 
2,383  prisoners  were  received  into  the  penitentiary, 
and  of  these  17  per  cent,  were  illiterate,  12  per 
cent,  could  read,  and  about  71  per  cent,  could  read 
and  write. 

Of  the  627  convicts  who  were  in  the  penitentiary 
during  the  year  1867,62  per  cent.,  or  five-eighths  of 
the  whole  number,  had  attended  the  public  schools 
of  the  State,  25  per  cent.,  or  two-eighths,  had  gone 


128  ht/lnence  of  Catholicism  a7id 

to  private  institutions,  and  12  per  cent.,  or  one- 
eighth,  had  never  gone  to  school. 

But,  as  we  have  said,  statistics  deal  with  crime, 
and  cliiefly  with'  the  more  open  and  discoverable 
sort,  not  with  morality  ;  whereas  nations  are  de- 
stroyed not  so  much  by  crime  as  by  immorality. 

The  thief  is  caught  and  sent  to  the  penitentiary  ; 
but  the  trader  who  adulterates  or  gives  short  mea- 
sure, the  banker  who  puts  forth  a  false  or  exagger- 
ated statement,  the  merchant  who  fails  with  full 
hands,  the  stock-gambler  who  robs  thousands, 
Credit-Mobilier  men  and  "  ring"  men  generally 
who  plunder  scientifically,  Congressmen  who  take 
money  for  helping  to  swindle  the  government, 
getters-up  of  "  bubble  companies" — salted  dia- 
mond-fields and  Emma  Mines — compared  with 
whom  pickpockets  and  burglars  are  respectable 
gentlemen — these  know  not  of  penitentiaries  ;  pri- 
sons were  not  built  for  such  as  they.  The  poor 
man  abandons  his  wife,  without  divorce  marries 
another,  and  is  very  properly  sent  to  State  prison. 
His  rich  and  educated  fellow-citizen  gets  a  divorce, 
or  is  a  free-lover,  or  keeps  a  harem,  and  for  him 
laws  were  not  made.  Even  that  respectable  old 
dame  Society  only  gently  shakes  her  head.  We 
must  not  expect  too  much  of  gentlemen,  you  know. 
The  ignorant  girl  falls,  commits  infanticide,  and  is 
incarcerated  or  hanged — heaven  forbid  that  we 
should  attempt  to  tell  what  she  would  have  done 
had  she  been  educated  ! — at  any  rate,  she  would 
not  have  gone  to  prison,  though  her  guilt  would 
not  have  been  less. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   129 

Has  the  very  great  diffusion  of  enlightenment 
among  our  people  during  the  hundred  years  that 
we  have  been  an  independent  nation  made  them 
more  moral  and  more  worthy? 

"  The  true  test  of  civilization  is  not  the  census, 
nor  the  size  of  cities,  nor  the  crops — no,  but  the 
kind  of  man  the  country  turns  out." 

The  Yankee  is  smarter  than  the  Puritan — is  he  as 
true  a  man  ?  Is  the  inventor  of  a  sewing-machine 
or  a  patent  bedstead  as  worthy  as  he  who  believes 
in  God  and  in  liberty  against  the  whole  earth  with 
all  his  heart  and  soul,  even  though  the  heart  be 
hard  and  the  soul  narrow  ?  What  compensation  is 
there  in  all  our  philanthropies,  transcendentalisms, 
sentimentalities,  patent  remedies  for  social  evils,  for 
the  loss  of  the  strong  convictions,  reverent  belief, 
and  simple  dignity  of  character  that  made  our 
fathers  men  ?  Do  we  believe  in  the  goodness  and 
honesty  of  men  as  they  did,  or  is  it  possible  that 
we  should  ?  What  can  come  of  beliefs  in  over- 
souls,  whims,  tendencies,  abstractions,  develop- 
ments? If  we  were  shadows  in  a  shadow-land, 
this  might  do. 

Look  at  a  famous  trial  where  the  very  aroma  and 
fine  essence  of  our  civilization  was  gathered  :  What 
bright  minds,  keen  intellects !  Poetry,  eloquence, 
romance  ;  the  culture,  the  knowledge,  the  scientific 
theories  of  the  age — all  are  there.  And  yet,  when 
the  veil  is  lifted,  we  simply  turn  away  heart-sick 
and  nauseated.  Not  a  hundred  statistical  prison 
reports  would  reveal  the  festering  corruption  and 
deep  depravity,  the  coarse  vulgarity  and  utter 
II 


1 30  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

Jieartlessness  that  is  there,  whatever  the  truth 
may  be,  if  in  such  surroundings  it  can  be  found 
at  all. 

In  Laing's  Notes  of  a  Traveller'^  we  find  a 
most  striking  example  of  almost  incredible  corrup- 
tion united  with  great  intellectual  culture.  "  In 
this  way,"  he  says,  "  we  must  account  for  the  sin- 
gular fact  that  the  only  positively  immoral  religious 
sect  of  the  present  times  in  the  Christian  world 
arose  and  has  spread  itself  in  the  most  educated 
part  of  the  most  educated  country  in  Europe — in 
and  about  Konigsberg,  the  capital  of  the  province 
of  Old  Prussia.  The  Muckers  are  a  sect  who  com- 
bine lewdness  with  religion.  The  conventicles  of 
this  sect  are  frequented  by  men  and  women  in  a 
state  of  nudity ;  and  to  excite  the  animal  passion, 
but  to  restrain  its  indulgence,  is  said  to  constitute 
their  religious  exercise.  Many  of  the  highest  no- 
bility of  the  province,  and  two  of  the  established 
clergy  of  the  city,  besides  citizens,  artificers,  and 
ladies,  old  and  young,  belong  to  this  sect ;  and  two 
young  ladies  are  stated  to  have  died  from  the  con- 
sequences of  excessive  libidinous  excitement.  It 
is  no  secret  association  of  profligacy  shunning  the 
light.  It  is  a  sect — according  to  the  declarations 
of  Von  Tippelskirch  and  of  several  persons  of  con- 
sideration in  Konigsberg  who  had  been  followers  of 
it  themselves — existing  very  extensively  under  the 
leadership  of  the  established  ministers  of  the  Gos- 
pel, Ebel  and  Diestel,  of  a  Count  von  Kaniz,  of  a 

Lady  von  S ,  and  of  other  noble  persons.  .  .  . 

♦  p.  221. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   1 3 1 

The  system  and  theory  of  this  dreadful  combina- 
tion of  vice  with  religion  are,  of  course,  very  pro- 
perly suppressed.  .  .  .  The  sect  itself  appears,  by 
Dr.  Bretscheider's  account  of  it,  to  have  been  so 
generally  diffused  that  he  says  '  it  cannot  be  be- 
lieved that  the  public  functionaries  were  in  ignorance 
of  its  existence  ;  but  they  were  afraid  to  do  their 
duty  from  the  influence  of  the  many  principal  people 
who  were  involved  in  it.'  " 

But  we  are  not  the  advocates  of  ignorance.  We 
will  praise  with  any  man  the  true  worth  and  ines- 
timable value  of  education.  Even  mere  mental 
training  is,  to  our  thinking,  of  rare  price.  Water 
is  good,  but  without  bread  it  will  not  sustain  life. 
Wine  warms  and  gladdens  the  heart  of  man  ;  but 
if  used  without  care,  it  maddens  and  drives  to  de- 
struction. We  are  crying  out  against  the  folly  of 
the  age  which  would  make  the  school-room  its 
church,  education  its  sacrament,  and  culture  its  re- 
ligion. It  is  the  road  to  ruin.  Culture  is  for  the 
few  ;  and  what  a  trumpery  patchwork  of  frippery 
and  finery  and  paste  diamonds  it  must  ever  remain 
for  the  most  of  these !  For  the  millions  it  means 
the  pagan  debauch,  the  bacchanal  orgy,  and  mere 
animalism. 

"  The  characters,"  wrote  Goethe — who  was  pagan 
of  the  pagans  and  "  decidirter  Nicht-Christ  " — 
"  which  we  can  truly  respect  have  become  rarer. 
We  can  sincerely  esteem  only  that  which  is  not 
self-seeking.  ...  I  must  confess  to  have  found 
through  my  whole  life  unselfish  characters  of  the 
kind  of  which  I  speak  only  there  where  I  found  a 


132  Infiuence  of  Catholicism  and 

firmly-grounded  religious  life  ;  a  creed,  which  had 
an  unchangeable  basis,  resting  upon  itself — not  de- 
pendent upon  the  time,  its  spirit,  or  its  science." 

This  foundation  of  a  positive  religious  faith  is  as 
indispensable  to  national  as  to  individual  character, 
and  without  it  the  diffusion  of  enlightenment  can- 
not create  a  great  or  lasting  civilization.  Religion 
ought  to  constitute  the  very  essence  of  all  primary 
education.  It  alone  can  touch  the  heart,  raise  the 
mind,  and  evoke  from  their  brutish  apathy  the  ele- 
ments of  humanity,  especially  the  reason  ;  and  it  is 
therefore  the  one  indispensable  element  in  any 
right  system  of  national  education.  A  population 
unable  to  read  or  write,  but  with  a  religious  faith 
and  discipline,  have  before  now  constituted,  and  may 
again  constitute,  a  great  nation  ;  but  a  people  with- 
out religious  earnestness  have  no  solid  political  cha- 
racter. Religion  is  the  widest  and  deepest  of  all 
the  elements  of  civilization  ;  it  reaches  those  whom 
nothing  else  can  touch  ;  but  for  the  masses  of  men 
there  can  be  no  religion  without  the  authoritative 
teaching  of  a  church. 

And  now  let  us  return  to  M.  de  Laveleye 
*•  The  general  spread  of  education,"  he  says,*  "  is 
indispensable  to  the  exercise  of  constitutional 
liberty.  .  .  .  Education  is  the  basis  of  national 
liberty  and  prosperity." 

In  view  of  the  facts  that  constitutional  liberty  has 
existed,  and  for  centuries,  in  states  in  which  there 
was  no  "  general  spread  of  education,"  and    that 

♦  P.  J3- 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.    133 

"the  diffusion  of  enlightenment "  is  found  in  our 
own  day  to  co-exist  with  the  most  hateful  despot- 
isms, we  might  pass  on,  without  stopping  to  exam- 
ine more  closely  these  loose  and  popular  phrases  ; 
but  since  the  fallacies  which  they  contain  form  a 
part  of  the  culture-creed  of  modern  paganism,  and 
are  accepted  as  indisputable  truths  by  the  multi- 
tude, they  have  a  claim  upon  our  attention  which 
their  assertion  by  Mr.  Gladstone's  friend  could  not 
give  them. 

There  is  no  necessary  connection  between  popular 
education  and  civfl  liberty,  as  there  is  none  between 
the  enlightenment  and  the  morality  of  a  people. 
This  is  a  subject  full  of  import — one  which,  in  this 
age  and  country,  ought  to  be  discussed  with  perfect 
freedom  and  courage.  Courage  indeed  is  needed 
precisely  here  ;  for  to  deny  that  there  is  a  God,  to 
treat  Christ  as  a  myth  or  a  common  man,  to 
declaim  against  religion  as  superstition,  to  make 
the  Bible  a  butt  for  witticisms  and  fine  points,  to 
deny  future  life  and  the  soul's  immortality,  to  de- 
nounce marriage,  to  preach  communism,  and  to 
ridicule  whatever  things  mankind  have  hitherto 
held  sacred—  this  is  not  only  tolerable,  it  is  praise- 
worthy and  runs  with  the  free  thought  of  an  en- 
lightened and  inquiring  age.  But  to  raise  a  doubt 
as  to  the  supreme  and  paramount  value  of  intellec- 
tual training ;  of  its  sovereign  efficacy  in  the  cure 
of  human  ills  ;  of  its  inseparable  alliance  with  free- 
dom, with  progress,  with  man's  best  interests,  is 
pernicious  heresy,  and  ought  not  to  be  borne  with 
patiently.     In  our  civilization,  through   the  action 


134  Injluejice  of  Catholicism  aftd 

of  majorities,  there  is  special  difficulty  in  such  dis- 
cussions, since  with  us  nothing  is  true  except  what 
is  popular.  Majorities  rule,  and  are  therefore  right. 
With  rare  eloquence  we  denounce  tyrant  kings  and 
turn  to  lick  the  hands  of  the  tyrant  people.  Who- 
ever questions  the  wisdom  of  the  American  people 
is  not  to  be  argued  with — he  is  to  be  pitied  ;  and 
therefore  both  press  and  pulpit,  though  they  flaunt 
the  banner  of  freedom,  are  the  servants  of  the 
tyrant.  To  have  no  principles,  but  to  write  aryd 
speak  what  will  please  the  most  and  offend  the  few- 
est— this  is  the  philosophy  of  free  speech.  We 
therefore  have  no  independent,  and  consequently 
no  great,  thinkers.  It  is  dangerous  not  to  think 
with  majorities  and  parties ;  for  those  who  attempt 
to  break  their  bonds  generally  succeed,  like  Emer- 
son, only  in  becoming  whimsical,  weak,  and  incon- 
clusive. It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  the  Catho- 
lics, because  they  do  not  accept  as  true  or  ultimate 
what  is  supposed  to  be  the  final  thought  and  defi- 
nite will  of  American  majorities  on  the  subject  of 
education,  should  be  denounced,  threatened,  and 
made  a  Trojan  horse  of  to  carry  political  adven- 
turers into  the  White  House. 

Nevertheless,  the  observant  are  losing  confidence 
in  the  theory,  so  full  of  inspiration  to  demagogues 
and  declaimers,  that  superstition  and  despotism 
must  be  founded  on  ignorance.  In  Prussia  at  this 
moment  universal  education  co-exists  with  despot- 
ism. Where  tyrannical  governments  take  control 
of  education  they  easily  make  it  their  ally. 

Let  us  hear  what  Laing  says  of  the  practical  re- 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.    1 3  5 

suits  of  the  Prussian  system  of  education,  which  it 
is  so  much  the  fashion  to  praise. 

"  If  the  ultimate  object,"  he  says,  "  of  all  educa- 
tion and  knowledge  be  to  raise  man  to  the  feeling 
of  his  own  moral  worth,  to  a  sense  of  his  responsi- 
bility to  his  Creator  and  to  his  conscience  for  every 
act,  to  the  dignity  of  a  reflecting,  self-guiding,  vir- 
tuous, religious  member  of  society,  then  the  Prus- 
sian educational  system  is  a  failure.  It  is  only  a 
training  from  childhood  in  the  conventional  disci- 
pline and  submission  of  mind  which  the  state  exacts 
from  its  subjects.  It  is  not  a  training  or  education 
which  has  raised,  but  which  has  lowered,  the  human 
character.  .  .  .  The  social  value  or  importance  of 
the  Prussian  arrangements  for  diffusing  national 
scholastic  education  has  been  evidently  overrated  ; 
for  now  that  the  whole  system  has  been  in  the  full- 
est operation  in  society  upon  a  whole  generation, 
we  see  morals  and  religion  in  a  more  unsatisfactory 
state  in  this  very  country  than  in  almost  any  other 
in  the  north  of  Europe ;  we  see  nowhere  a  people 
in  a  more  abject  political  and  civil  condition,  or 
with  less  free  agency  in  their  social  economy.  A 
national  education  which  gives  a  nation  neither  re- 
ligion, nor  morality,  nor  civil  liberty,  nor  political 
liberty  is  an  education  not  worth  having.  ...  If 
to  read,  write,  cipher,  and  sing  be  education,  the 
Prussian  subject  is  an  educated  man.  If  to  reason, 
judge,  and  act  as  an  independent  free  agent,  in  the 
religious,  moral,  and  social  relations  of  man  to  his 
Creator  and  to  his  fellow-men,  be  the  exercise  of 
the  mental  powers  which  alone  deserves  the  name 


136  hifluence  of  Catholicism  a7id 

of  education,  then  is  the  Prussian  subject  a  mere 
drum-boy  in  education,  in  the  cultivation  and  use 
of  all  that  regards  the  moral  and  intellectual  en- 
dowments of  man,  compared  to  one  of  the  unlet- 
tered population  of  a  free  country.  The  dormant 
state  of  the  public  mind  on  all  affairs  of  public  in- 
terest, the  acquiescence  in  a  total  Avant  of  political 
influence  or  existence,  the  intellectual  dependence 
upon  the  government  or  its  functionary  in  all  the 
affairs  of  the  community,  the  abject  submission  to 
the  want  of  freedom  or  free  agency  in  thoughts, 
words,  or  acts,  the  religious  thraldom  of  the  people 
to  forms  which  they  despise,  the  want  of  influ- 
ence of  religious  and  social  principle  in  society, 
justify  the  conclusion  that  the  moral,  religious,  and 
social  condition  of  the  people  was  never  looked  at 
or  estimated  by  those  writers  who  were  so  enthu- 
siastic in  their  praises  of  the  national  education  of 
Prussia." 

In  spite  of  the  continued  progress  of  education, 
there  is  even  less  liberty,  religious,  civil,  and  politi- 
cal, in  Prussia  to-day  than  when  these  words  were 
written,  thirty  years  ago. 

Nothing  more  dazzles  the  eyes  of  men  than  great 
military  success  ;  and  this,  together  with  the  habit 
Avhich  belongs  to  our  race  of  applauding  whoever 
wins,  has  produced,  especially  in  England  and  the 
United  States,  where  Bismarck  is  looked  upon,  ig- 
norantly  enough,  as  the  champion  of  Protestantism, 
a  kind  of  blind  admiration  and  awe  for  whatever 
is  Prussian.  "  Protestant  Prussia,"  boasts  M.  de 
Laveleye,  "  has   defeated    two    empires,  each  con- 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   1 3  7 

taining  twice  her  own  population,  the  one  in  seven 
weeks,  the  other  in  seven  months";  and  in  the 
new  edition  of  Appleton's  Cyclopcedia  we  are  in- 
formed that  these  victories  are  attributed  to  the 
superior  education  of  her  people.  As  well  might 
the  tyranny  of  the  government  and  the  notorious 
unchastity  and  dishonesty  of  the  Prussians  be 
ascribed  to  their  superior  education.  Not  to  the 
general  intelligence  of  the  people,  but  to  the  fact 
that  the  whole  country  has  been  turned  into  a  mili- 
tary camp,  and  that  to  the  one  purpose  of  war  all 
interests  have  been  made  subservient,  must  we 
seek  for  an  explanation  of  the  victories  of  Sadowa 
and  Sedan. 

Who  would  pretend  that  the  Spartans  were  in 
war  superior  to  the  Athenians  because  they  had  a 
more  perfect  system  of  education  and  were  more 
intelligent  or  had  a  truer  religion  ?  Or  who  would 
think  of  accounting  in  this  way  for  the  marvellous 
exploits  of  Attila  with  his  Huns,  of  Zingis  Khan 
with  his  Moguls,  of  Tamerlane  with  his  Tartars,  of 
Mahmood,  Togrul-Bey,  and  Malek-Shah  with  their 
Turkish  hordes  ? 

In  fact,  it  may  be  said,  speaking  largely  and  in 
general,  that  the  history  of  war  is  that  of  the  tri- 
umph of  strong  and  ignorant  races  over  those  which 
have  become  cultivated,  refined,  and  corrupt.  The 
Romans  learned  from  their  conquered  slaves  letters 
and  the  vices  of  a  more  polished  paganism.  Bar- 
barism is  ever  impending  over  the  civilized  world. 
The  wild  and  rugged  north  is  ever  rushing  down 
upon  the    soft  and    cultured   south ;  the    Scythian 


o 


8  Influence  of  Catholicism  a^td 


upon  the  Mede,  the  Persian,  and  the  Egyptian  ;  the 
Macedonian  upon  Greece,  and  then  upon  Asia  and 
Africa  ;  the  Roman  upon  Carthage,  and  in  turn  fall- 
ing before  the  men  of  the  north — Goth,  Vandal, 
Hun,  Frank,  and  Gaul;  the  Mogul  and  the  Tartar 
upon  China  and  India  ;  the  Turk  upon  southern 
Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa ;  and  to-day,  like  black 
clouds  of  destiny,  the  Russian  hordes  hang  over  the 
troubled  governments  of  more  educated  Europe. 
Look  at  Italy  during  the  middle  ages — the  focus 
of  learning  and  the  arts  for  all  Christendom,  and  yet 
an  easy  prey  for  every  barbarous  adventurer ;  and  in 
England  the  Briton  yields  to  the  Saxon,  who  in 
turn  falls  before  the  Norman.  It  would  be  truer  to 
say  that  Prussia  owes  her  military  successes  to  the 
ignorance  of  her  people,  though  they  nearly  all  can 
read  and  write.  Had  she  had  to  deal  with  intelli- 
gent and  enlightened  populations,  she  could  not 
have  made  the  country  a  camp  of  soldiers. 

The  Prussian  policy  of  "  blood  and  iron  "  has 
been  carried  out,  in  defiance  of  the  wishes  of  the 
people  as  expressed  through  their  representatives, 
who  were  snubbed  and  scolded  and  sent  back  home 
as  though  they  were  a  pack  of  school-boys ;  yet 
the  people  looked  on  in  stolid  indifference,  and 
allowed  the  tax  to  be  levied  after  they  had  refused 
to  grant  it. 

We  will  now  follow  M.  de  Laveleye  a  step  far- 
ther. 

"  With  regard  to  elementary  instruction,"  he 
says,  "  the  Protestant  states  are  incomparably  more 
advanced  than  the  Catholic.     England  alone  is  no 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   139 

more  than  on  a  level  with  the  latter,  probably  be- 
cause the  Anglican  Church,  of  all  the  reformed 
forms  of  worship,  has  most  in  common  with  the 
Church  of  Rome." 

If  any  one  has  good  reason  to  praise  education, 
and  above  all  the  education  of  the  people,  certain- 
ly we  Catholics  have.  The  Catholic  Church  creat- 
ed the  people  ;  she  first  preached  the  divine  doc- 
trine of  the  brotherhood  and  equality  of  all  men  be- 
fore God,  which  has  wrought  and  must  continue  to 
work  upon  society  until  all  men  shall  be  recognized 
as  equals  by  the  law.  She  drew  around  woman  her 
magic  circle ;  from  the  slave  struck  his  fetters  and 
bade  him  be  a  man  ;  lifted  to  her  bosom  the  child  ; 
baptized  all  humanity  into  the  inviolable  sacredness 
of  Christ's  divinity  ;  she  appealed,  and  still  appeals, 
from  the  tyranny  of  brute  force  and  success,  in  the 
name  of  the  eternal  liberties  of  the  soul,  to  God. 
Her  martyrs  were  and  are  the  martyrs  of  liberty ; 
and  if  she  were  not  to-day,  all  men  would  accept 
accomplished  facts  and  bow  before  whatever  suc- 
ceeds. 

The  barbarians,  who  have  developed  into  the  civ- 
ilized peoples  of  Europe,  despised  learning  as  they 
contemned  labor.  War  was  their  business.  The 
knight  signed  his  name  with  his  sword,  in  blood  ; 
the  pen,  like  the  spade,  was  made  for  servile  hands. 
To  destroy. this  ignorant,  idle  life  of  pillage  and 
feud,  the  church  organized  an  army,  unlike  any  the 
world  had  ever  seen,  unlike  any  it  will  ever  see  out- 
side her  pale — an  army  of  monks,  who,  with  faith 
in  Christ  and  the  higher  life,  believed  in  knowledge 


140  Injiuence  of  Catholicism  and 

and  in  work.  They  became  the  cultivators  of  the 
mind  and  soil  of  Europe. 

"The  praise,"  says  Hallam,  speaking  of  the  mid- 
dle ages,  "  of  having  originally  established  schools 
belongs  to  some  bishops  and  abbots  of  the  sixth 
century." 

Ireland  is  converted  and  at  once  becomes  a  kind 
of  university  for  all  Europe.  In  England  the  epis- 
copal sees  became  centres  of  learning.  Wherever  a 
cathedral  was  built  a  school  with  a  library  grew  up 
under  its  shadow.  Pope  Eugenius  II.,  in  a  council 
held  in  Rome  in  826,  ordered  that  schools  should 
be  established  throughout  Christendom  at  cathedral 
and  parochial  churches  and  other  suitable  places. 
The  Council  of  Mayence,  in  813,  admonishes  pa- 
rents that  they  are  in  duty  bound  to  send  their 
children  to  school.  The  Synod  of  Orleans,  in  800, 
enjoins  the  erection  in  towns  and  villages  of  schools 
for  elementary  instruction,  and  adds  that  no  re- 
muneration shall  be  received  except  such  as  the  pa- 
rents voluntarily  offer.  The  Third  General  Council 
of  Lateran,  in  1179,  commanded  that  in  all  cathe- 
dral churches  a  fund  should  be  set  aside  for  the 
foundation  and  support  of  schools  for  the  poor. 
Free  schools  were  thus  first  established  by  the 
Catholic  Church,  and  her  monasteries  were  the  libra- 
ries where  the  arts  and  letters  of  a  civilization  that 
had  perished  were  carefully  treasured  up  for  the  re- 
kindling of  a  brighter  and  better  day. 

As  early  as  the  twelfth  century  many  of  the  uni- 
versities of  Europe  were  fully  organized.  Italy 
took    the    lead,    with    universities   at    Rome,    Bo- 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   141 

logna,    Padua,    Naples,    Pavia,    and    Perugia — the 
sources 

"Whence  many  rivulets  have  since  been  turned, 
O'er  the  garden  Catholic  to  lead 
Their  living  waters,  and  have  fed  its  plants." 

The  schools  founded  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
in  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  had  in  the  twelfth 
grown  to  be  universities.  At  Oxford  there  were 
thirty  thousand,  at  Paris  twenty-five  thousand,  and 
at  Padua  twenty  thousand  students.  Scattered 
over  Europe  at  the  time  Luther  raised  his  voice 
against  the  church  there  were  sixty-six  universities. 

"Time  went  on,"  says  Dr.  Newman,  speaking  of 
the  mediaeval  universities;  "a  new  state  of  things, 
intellectual  and  social,  came  in  ;  the  church  was  girt 
with  temporal  power;  the  preachers  of  St.  Dominic 
were  in  the  ascendant :  now,  at  length,  we  may  ask 
with  curious  interest,  did  the  church  alter  her  an- 
cient rule  of  action,  and  proscribe  intellectual  activ- 
ity? Just  the  contrary;  this  is  the  very  age  of  uni- 
versities ;  it  is  the  classical  period  of  the  school- 
men ;  it  is  the  splendid  and  palmary  instance  of 
the  wise  policy  and  large  liberality  of  the  church, 
as  regards  philosophical  inquiry.  If  there  ever  was 
a  time  when  the  intellect  went  wild  and  had  a  li- 
centious revel,  it  was  at  the  date  I  speak  of.  When 
was  there  ever  a  more  curious,  more  meddling, 
bolder,  keener,  more  penetrating,  more  rationalistic 
exercise  of  the  reason  than  at  that  time?  What 
class  of  questions  did  that  subtle  metaphysical 
spirit  not  scrutinize?  What  premise  was  allowed 
without    examination  ?     What    principle    was    not 


142  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

traced  to  its  first  origin,  and  exhibited  in  its  most 
naked  shape  ?  .  .  .  Well,  I  repeat,  here  was  some- 
thing which  came  somewhat  nearer  to  theology 
than  physical  research  comes ;  Aristotle  was  a 
somewhat  more  serious  foe  then,  beyond  all  mis- 
take, than  Bacon  has  been  since.  Did  the  church 
take  a  high  hand  with  philosophy  then  ?  No,  not 
though  that  philosophy  was  metaphysical.  It  was 
a  time  when  she  had  temporal  power,  and  could 
have  exterminated  the  spirit  of  inquiry  with  fire 
and  sword  ;  but  she  determined  to  put  it  down  by 
argument ;  she  said:  'Two  can  play  at  that,  and 
my  argument  is  the  better.*  She  sent  her  contro- 
versialists into  the  philosophical  arena.  It  was  the 
Dominican  and  Franciscan  doctors,  the  greatest  of 
them  being  St.  Thomas,  who  in  those  mediaeval  uni- 
versities fought  the  battle  of  revelation  with  the 
weapons  of  heathenism."  * 

To  find  fault  with  the  church  because  popular 
education  in  the  middle  ages  was  not  so  well  organ- 
ized nor  so  general  as  in  our  own  day  would  be  as 
wise  as  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  the  ancient  Greeks 
for  not  having  railroads,  or  with  the  Romans  be- 
cause they  had  no  steamships.  Reading  and  writ- 
ing were  not  taUght  then  universally  as  they  are 
now,  because  the  mechanism  which  renders  this  pos- 
sible did  not  exist.  Without  steam  and  the  print- 
ing-press, common-school  systems  would  not  now  be 
practicable,  nor  would  the  want  of  them  be  felt. 
We  have  great  reason  to  be  thankful  that  the  art 
of  printing  was  invented  and  America  discovered 

*  The  Idea  of  a  University,  p.  4^9, 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.  143 

before  Luther  burned  the  Pope's  bull,  else  we 
should  be  continually  bothered  with  refuting  the 
cause-and-effect  historians  who  would  have  infalli- 
bly traced  both  these  events  to  the  Wittenberg 
conflagration. 

All  Europe  was  still  Catholic  when  gunpowder 
drove  old  Father  Schwarz's  pestle  through  the  ceil- 
ing, when  Gutenberg  made  his  printing-press,  when 
Columbus  landed  in  the  New  World  ;  and  these  are 
the  forces  which  have  battered  down  the  castles  of 
feudalism,  have  brought  knowledge  within  the 
reach  of  all,  and  some  measure  of  redress  to  the 
masses  of  the  Old  World,  by  affording  them  the 
possibility  and  opportunity  of  liberty  in  the  New. 
These  forces  would  have  wrought  to  even  better 
purpose  had  Protestan-tism  not  broken  the  continu- 
ity and  homogeneity  of  Christian  civilization.  The 
Turk  would  not  rest  like  a  blight  from  heaven  upon 
the  fairest  lands  of  Europe  and  Asia,  nor  the  dark- 
ness of  heathenism  upon  India  and  China,  had  the 
civilized  nations  remained  of  one  faith ;  and  thus, 
though  our  own  train  might  have  rushed  less  rapid- 
ly down  the  ringing  grooves  of  change,  the  whole 
human  race  would  have  advanced  to  a  level  which 
there  now  seems  but  little  reason  to  hope  it  will 
ever  reach. 

We  are  slowly  but  inevitably  rising  to  a  position 
from  which  it  will  be  possible  to  understand  the  in- 
jury done  to  Christian  civilization  by  the  disturbing 
influence  of  Protestantism.  For  a  long  time  reli- 
gious prejudice  prevented  men  from  seeing  the 
plainest  and  most    unmistakable    facts   of  history, 


144  Influence  of  CatJiolicism  and 

and  we  are  therefore  not  surprised  that  the  six- 
teenth century  should  have  been  glorified  by  an 
almost  universal  hymn  of  praise.  In  order  to  jus- 
tify itself,  Protestantism  was  under  the  sad  ne- 
cessity of  misinterpreting  or  perverting  the  history 
of  Christendom.  The  fifteenth  century  was 
robbed  of  its  Catholic  glories  to  crown  the 
sixteenth  with  honors  which  were  not  its  own. 

"The  fifteenth  century,"  says  Guizot,  "  is  a  cen- 
tury of  voyages,  enterprises,  discoveries,  and  inven- 
tions of  all  kinds."* 

The  revival  of  letters,  the  invention  of  printing, 
the  discovery  of  America,  the  mariner's  compass,  gun- 
powder, the  establishment  of  universities,  of  banks, 
of  postal  service,  the  Gothic  architecture,  the  mathe- 
matics, mining,  smelting,  weaving,  engineering,  pa- 
per, fire-arms,  clocks,  musical  instruments,  the  mo- 
dern languages,  the  greatest  of  modern  poems, 
were  all  before  Luther.  Marsilius  Ficin,  who  was 
born  in  1433,  understood  his  age  when  he  called 
the  fifteenth  century  the  golden  ;  for  it  was  beyond 
question  the  glorious  dawn  of  a  brighter  era.  "Aure- 
um  esse  hoc  sKCulum,"  he  says,  "minime  dubitabit, 
qui  praeclara  saeculihujus  inventa  considerare  volue- 
rit."  And  its  greatest  splendor  was  in  Italy,  where 
the  influence  of  the  popes  was  most  powerful.  Le- 
onardo da  Vinci,  who  was  born  in  1445,  the  painter 
ofthe"Last  Supper"  and  the  rival  of  Michael  An- 
gelo,  rendered  greater  services  even  to  science  than 
to  art.  He  it  was  who  first  proclaimed  the  princi- 
ple that  experiment  and  observation  are  the  only 

♦  History  of  Civilization  in  Euro/>e,  Lesson  xi. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.    145 

right  methods  in  scientific  investigation.  He  excel- 
led in  painting,  sculpture,  architecture,  engineering, 
and  was  thoroughly  instructed  in  the  astronomy, 
anatomy,  and  chemistry  of  his  times.  "  To  him," 
says  Dr.  Draper,  "  and  not  to  Lord  Bacon,  must  be 
attributed  the  renaissance  of  science.  Bacon  was 
not  only  ignorant  of  mathematics,  but  deprecated 
its  application  to  physical  inquiries.  He  con- 
temptuously rejected  the  Copernican  system,  al- 
leging absurd  objections  to  it.  While  Galileo  was 
on  the  brink  of  'his  "great  telescopic  discoveries, 
Bacon  was  publishing  doubts  as  to  the  utility  of 
instruments  in  scientific  investigations.  To  ascribe 
the  inductive  method  to  him  is  to  ignore  history. 
His  fanciful  philosophical  suggestions  have  never 
been  of  the  slightest  use.  No  one  has  ever  thought 
of  employing  them.  Except  among  English  read- 
ers, his  name  is  almost  unknown."  * 

To  Italy  belongs  the  honor  of  the  invention  of 
the  barometer,  and  also  of  the  thermometer.  Harvey 
owed  his  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  to 
the  experiments  of  his  teacher,  Fabricius  of  Padua. 
The  school  of  Salerno,  the  great  medical  author- 
ity in  Europe  from  the  eighth  to  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, was  founded  by  the  disciples  of  St.  Benedict, 
who  also  called  the  attention  of  the  afflicted  to  the 
value  of  mineral  waters  in  the  cure  of  disease. 
Baden,  Kissingen,  Marienbad,  Pyrmont,  Rippoldsau, 
and  many  other  similar  places  were  from  the  ear- 

*  Conflict  between  Religion  and  Science^  p.  233.     Dr.  Draper  but  repeats  what 
Liebig  has  satisfactorily  proved  in  his  work  on  Bacon.      Both  he  and  Goethe,  who 
is  no  mean  authority  in  such  matters,  hold  that  Bacon's  influence  retarded   the 
progress  of  science. 
12 


146  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

liest  times  in  the  hands  of  the  monks,  who  invited 
the  suffering  from  every  land  to  try  the  virtues  of 
these  waters. 

Geographical  discovery  was  carried  on  under  the 
patronage  and  with  the  aid  of  the  church.  "  In 
our  day,"  says  Ritter,  "  commercial  and  scientific 
interests  are  the  motives  which  impel  to  a  wider 
knowledge  of  the  earth  ;  in  the  middle  ages  these 
motives  were  drawn  from  religion  and  the  church."  * 
Even  as  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen- 
tury our  knowledge  of  the  great  Chinese  Empire 
was  derived  principally  from  the  writings  of  the  Je- 
suit missionaries. 

The  most  celebrated  geographer  of  the  middle 
ages  was  Father  Mauro,  a  Camaldulese  monk,  who 
died  in  1459.  His  chief  labors  were  undertaken  in 
the  interests  of  the  Republic  of  Venice  and  of  Al- 
fonso V.  of  Portugal.  His  geographical  charts  in- 
spired Vasco  da  Gama  and  Christopher  Columbus 
with  the  thoughts  which  led  to  such  immortal  re- 
sults. Another  priest,  Hermann  Martinez,  was  the 
first  to  suggest  the  idea  which  led  to  the  discovery 
of  the  New  World — that  the  best  way  to  reach  the 
east  was  to  sail  westward  ;  and  when  Columbus 
was  about  to  lose  all  hope,  a  Spanish  monk  won  to 
his  enterprise  the  heart  of  the  great  Catholic  queen. 

But  we  lose  sight  of  M.  de  Laveleye's  assertion 
that  in  popular  education  the  Protestant  nations  are 
far  in  advance  of  the  Catholic,  with  the  exception 
of  England,  which  is  at  least  up  to  the  standard  of 
Catholic  countries.     In  the  report  of  the  Commis- 

♦  Histoire  dei  Dicoin<ertes  Gdogi-afhigues,  p,  141. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   147 

sioner  of  Education  for  1874  there  is  a  statistical 
account  of  the  state  of  education  in  foreign  coun- 
tries which  throws  some  light  upon  this  subject. 

The  school  attendance,  compared  with  the  popu- 
lation, is  in  Austria  as  i  to  10 ;  in  Belgium,  as  i 
to  10^;  in  Ireland,  as  i  to  16;  in  Catholic  Swit- 
zerland, as  I  to  16;  in  England,  as  i  to  17.  In 
Bavaria  it  is  as  i  to  7,  upon  the  authority  of  Kay,  in 
his  Social  Condition  of  the  People  in  Englajid  and 
Europe.  Catholic  Austria,  Bavaria,  Belgium,  and 
Ireland  have  proportionately  a  larger  school  at- 
tendance than  Protestant  England.  England  and 
Wales  (report  of  1874),  with  a  population  of  22, 712,- 
266,  had  a  school  population  of  5,374,700,  of  whom 
only  about  half  were  registered,  and  not  half  of 
these  attended  with  sufficient  regularity  to  bring 
grants  to  their  schools.  Ireland,  with  a  population 
of  5,411,416,  had  on  register  1,006,511,  or  nearly 
half  as  many  as  England  and  Wales,  though  her 
population  is  not  a  fourth  of  that  of  these  two 
countries.  "  The  statistical  fact,"  says  Laing,  speak- 
ing of  Rome  as  it  was  under  the  popes,  "  that 
Rome  has  above  a  hundred  schools  more  than  Ber- 
lin, for  a  population  little  more  than  half  that  of 
Berlin,  puts  to  flight  a  world  of  humbug  about  sys- 
tems of  national  education  carried  on  by  govern- 
ments and  their  moral  effects  on  society.  ...  In 
Catholic  Germany,  in  France,  Italy,  and  even  Spain, 
the  education  of  the  common  people  in  reading, 
writing,  arithmetic,  music,  manners,  and  morals,  is 
at  least  as  generally  diffused  and  as  faithfully  pro- 
moted by  the  clerical   body  as  in  Scotland.     It  is 


148  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

by  their  own  advance,  and  not  by  keeping  back  the 
advance  of  the  people,  that  the  popish  priesthood 
of  the  present  day  seek  to  keep  ahead  of  the  intel- 
lectual progress  of  the  community  in  Catholic 
lands ;  and  they  might,  perhaps,  retort  on  our 
Presbyterian  clergy,  and  ask  if  they,  too,  are  in 
their  countries  at  the  head  of  the  intellectual  move- 
ment of  the  age.  Education  is  in  reality  not  only 
not  repressed,  but  is  encouraged,  by  the  popish 
church,  and  is  a  mighty  instrument  in  its  hands, 
and  ably  used."  * 

Professor  Huxley's  testimony  is  confirmatory  of 
this  admission  of  Laing.  "  It  was  my  fortune,"  he 
says,  "  some  time  ago  to  pay  a  visit  to  one  of  the 
most  important  of  the  institutions  in  which  the 
clergy  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  these 
islands  are  trained  ;  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  the 
difference  between  these  men  and  the  comfortable 
champions  of  Anglicanism  and  Dissent  was  com- 
parable to  the  difference  between  our  gallant  Vol- 
unteers and  the  trained  veterans  of  Napoleon's  Old 
Guard.  The  Catholic  priest  is  trained  to  know  his 
business  and  do  it  effectually.  The  professors  of 
the  college  in  question,  learned,  zealous,  and  deter- 
mined men,  permitted  me  to  speak  frankly  with 
them.  We  talked  like  outposts  of  opposed  armies 
during  a  truce — as  friendly  enemies  ;  and  when  I 
ventured  to  point  out  the  difficulties  their  students 
would  have  to  encounter  from  scientific  thought, 
they  replied  :  '  Our  church  has  lasted  many  ages, 
and  has  passed  safely  through  many  storms.     The 

*  Notes  of  a  Traveller,  pp.  402,  403. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   149 

present  is  but  a  new  gust  of  the  old  tempest,  and 
we  do  not  turn  out  our  young  men  less  fitted  to 
weather  it  than  they  have  been  in  former  times  to 
cope  with  the  difficulties  of  those  times.'  "* 

"  It  is  a  common  remark,"  says  Kay,  "  of  the 
operatives  of  Lancashire,  and  one  which  is  only  too 
true  :  '  Your  church  is  a  church  for  the  rich,  but  not 
for  the  poor.  It  was  not  intended  for  such  people 
as  we  are.'  The  Roman  church  is  much  wiser  than 
the  English  in  this  respect.  ...  It  is  singular  to 
observe  how  the  •  priests  of  Romanist  countries 
abroad  associate  with  the  poor.  I  have  often  seen 
them  riding  with  the  peasants  in  their  carts  along 
the  roads,  eating  with  them  in  their  houses,  sitting 
with  them  in  the  village  inns,  mingling  with  them 
in  their  village  festivals,  and  yet  always  preserving 
their  authority,  "f 

With  us,  too,  the  masses  of  the  people  are  fast 
abandoning  Protestantism.  There  is  no  Catholic 
country  in  Europe  in  which  the  social  condition  of 
the  lower  classes  is  so  wretched  as  in  England,  the 
representative  Protestant  country.  For  three  hun- 
dred years,  it  may  be  said,  the  Catholic  Church  had 
no  existence  there.  The  nation  was  exclusively 
under  Protestant  influence ;  and  yet  the  lower 
classes  were  suffered  to  remain  in  stolid  ignorance, 
until  they  became  the  most-degraded  population  in 
Christendom. 

"  It  has  been  calculated,"  says  Kay,  writing  in 
1850,  "  that  there  are  at  the  present  day,  in  Eng- 

*  Lay  Sermons,  p.  6i, 

+  The  Social  CondLion,  etc.,  vol.  i.  p.  420. 


150  hijiuence  of  Catholicism^  etc. 

land  and  Wales,  nearly  8,000,000  persons  who  can- 
not read  and  write."  That  was  more  than  half  of 
the  whole  population  at  that  time.  But  this  is  not 
the  worst.  A  population  unable  to  read  or  write 
may  nevertheless,  to  a  certain  extent,  be  educated 
through  religious  teaching  and  influence  ;  but  these 
unhappy  creatures  were  left,  helpless  and  hopeless, 
to  sink  deeper  and  deeper  beneath  the  weight  of 
their  degradation,  without  being  brought  into  con- 
tact with  any  power  that  could  refine  or  elevate 
them ;  and  if  their  condition  has  somewhat  im- 
proved in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  this  is  no 
more  to  be  attributed  to  Protestantism  than  the 
Catholic  Emancipation  Act  or  the  Atlantic  cable. 


COMPARATIVE  INFLUENCE  OF  CATHO- 
LICISM AND  PROTESTANTISM  ON  NA- 
TIONAL PROSPERITY. 

III.    MORALITY. 


HE  keen  relish  which  we  all  have  for  other 
people's  sins  is  proverbial.  As  those 
who  think  with  us  are  right,  so  are  they 
virtuous  who  have  only  our  own  vices. 
Prodigality,  which,  to  the  miser's  thinking,  is  the 
worst  of  sins,  is,  in  the  eyes  of  the  spendthrift, 
merely  an  evidence  of  a  generous  nature.  Men  who 
wish  to  be  thought  gentlemen  have  a  weakness  for 
what  are  called  gentlemanly  vices ;  but  from  the 
coarser  though  less  depraved  wickedness  of  the  vul- 
gar they  turn  with  loathing.  This  bias  of  our  com- 
mon nature  is  not  confined  in  its  action  to  indivi- 
duals ;  it  affects  classes,  nations,  races.  The  rich  are 
shocked  by  the  vices  of  the  poor,  and  the  poor,  in 
turn,  no  less  by  those  of  the  rich  ;  masters  hate  the 
sins  of  servants,  and  are  repaid  in  their  own  coin. 

When  the  free-born  Briton  sings,  "  England, 
with  all  thy  faults,  I  love  thee  still,"  he  means  that 
faults,  if  only  they  be  English,  are  after  all  not  so 
bad.     Wrapt  up  in  the  precious  bundle  of  our  self- 


152  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

m 

love  are  all  our  pet  sins  and  weaknesses.  The  uni- 
versal hatred  which  existed  between  the  nations  of 
antiquity  must  be  attributed  in  great  part  to  the 
fact  that  their  vices  were  unlike,  and  therefore  re- 
pellant.  The  national  contempt  for  foreigners  is, 
in  Christian  times,  strong  in  proportion  to  the  bar- 
barism of  the  people  by  whom  it  is  felt ;  but  in 
Greece  and  Rome  such  civilization  as  was  then  pos- 
sible seemed  to  have  no  power  over  this  prejudice. 
Not  to  be  a  Greek  was  to  have  been  created  for  vile 
uses,  and  not  to  be  a  Roman  was  to  be  nobody. 
The  French,  as  seen  by  the  English,  are  giddy  and 
lack  dignity;  the  English  appear  to  French  eyes 
sulky  and  wanting  in  good  nature;  the  Turk  thinks 
both  struck  with  madness,  because  they  walk  about 
and  stretch  their  legs  when  they  might  sit  still ; 
and  though  he  is  at  their  mercy,  yet  he  cannot  per- 
suade himself  that  they  are  anything  but  Christian 
dogs.  The  negro  is  quite  sure  the  first  man  must 
have  been  black,  and  in  this  he  is  in  accord  with 
Mr.  Darwin.  The  North  American  Indian  will 
vanish  from  the  earth  through  the  golden  portab 
of  the  western  world  still  believing  that  he  is  the 
superior  of  the  "  pale  face."  The  power  of  nation- 
al prejudice  is  almost  incredible.  "  Our  country, 
right  or  wrong"  is,  we  believe,  an  American  phrase  ; 
but  it  expresses  a  sentiment  which  is  almost  uni- 
versally held  to  be  right  and  proper.  In  interna- 
tional disputes  men  nearly  always  take  sides  with 
their  own  country,  without  stopping  to  inquire 
into  the  merits  of  the  quarrel,  which,  indeed,  the 
strong  feeling  that  at  once  masters  them  would  pre- 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.    153 

vent  them  from  being  able  to  do.  They  act  instinc- 
tively like  children  who  always  think  that  in  diffi- 
culties with  neighbors  their  own  parents  are  in  the 
right.  We  Americans  are  certainly  not  paragons 
of  virtue,  and  in  this  centennial  year  it  is  probably 
wise  to  discuss  almost  anything  rather  than  our 
morals ;  yet  we  cannot  but  think  that  M.  Louis 
Veuillot  was  somewhat  under  the  influence  of  na- 
tional prejudice  when  he  wrote  that,  if  we  were 
sunk  in  the  bottom  of  the  ocean,  civilization  would 
have  lost  nothing.  Our  form  of  government,  it  is 
true,  does  not  lead  us  to  look  for  salvation,  either 
in  church  or  state,  from  a  king  by  divine  right  ; 
still,  he  might  just  as  well  have  let  us  alone,  espe- 
cially as  he  is  at  no  loss  for  quarrels  at  home.  Nor 
can  we  think  that  the  Germans  Avho  have  raised 
such  a  storm  of  indignation  over  the  crime  in  Bre- 
merhaven,  committed,  as  it  is  supposed,  by  an 
American,  would  have  held  the  whole  German  peo- 
ple and  their  civilization  responsible  for  the  offence 
had  they  known  its  author  to  be  native  there  and 
to  the  manner  born. 

As  no  passion  takes  hold  of  the  human  heart 
with  such  sovereign  power  as  that  of  religion,  it  fol- 
lows that  no  bias  of  judgment  is  more  fatal  to  truth 
than  religious  prejudice;  and  now  let  us  gently  de- 
scend again  to  M.  Emile  de  Laveleye  and  his  pam- 
phlet : 

"  It  is  agreed  on  all  sides,"  he  says,*  "  that  the 
power  of  nations  depends  on  their  morality.  Every- 
where is  found  the  maxim,  which  is  almost  become 

*  p.  25. 

13 


154  Influence  of  Catholicism  a?td 

an  axiom  of  political  science,  that  where  morals  are 
corrupted  the  state  is  lost.  Now,  it  appears  to  be 
an  established  fact  that  the  moral  level  is  higher 
among  Protestant  than  among  Catholic  populations. 
Religious  writers  confess  this  themselves,  and  ex- 
plain it  by  the  fact  that  the  former  remain  more 
faithful  to  their  religion  than  the  latter,  which  ex- 
planation I  believe  to  be  the  true  one." 

Here  is  fairness  surely.  The  soft  impeachment 
could  not  have  been  made  in  a  more  moderate  or 
subdued  tone.  Catholics  are  notoriously  more  im- 
moral than  Protestants  ;  but  the  subject  is  a  pain- 
ful one,  and  M.  de  Laveleye  does  not  wish  to  em- 
phasize the  unpleasant  truth  by  giving  proof — which, 
indeed,  would  be  superfluous,  since  Catholics  them- 
selves, we  are  assured,  admit  the  fact  and  are  con- 
cerned only  about  its  explanation  ;  and,  strange  to 
say,  they  have  found  the  key  to  the  mystery  in  the 
greater  fidelity  of  Protestants  to  their  religion  :  so 
M.  de  Laveleye  and  the  Catholics  shake  hands  and 
the  dispute  is  at  an  end. 

The  position  of  Protestants  with  regard  to  this 
question  is  peculiar.  The  very  life  of  their  religion 
is  intimately  associated  with  a  fi^^ed  belief  in  the  pre- 
ternatural wickedness  of  popes,  priests,  nuns,  and 
Catholics  generally.  The  sole  justification  of  Pro- 
testantism was  found  in  the  abominable  corruptions 
of  Rome,  and  its  only  defence  is  that  it  is  a  purer 
worship,  capable  of  creating  a  higher  morality.  The 
history  of  the  Reformation,  as  written  by  Protes- 
tants, traces  its  origin  to  an  awful  and  heaven-inspir- 
ed indignation  at  the  sight  of  papal  iniquity,  which 


Protestanlism  on  National  Prosperity.    155 

resulted  in  a  divine  Protest  against  sin.  It  is  this 
feeling,  indeed,  which  is  the  living  human  magnet- 
ism in  the  words  of  Luther,  Calvin,  Zwingli,  and 
Knox.  They  all  felt  that  in  so  far  as  they  protest- 
ed against  open  and  patent  evil  they  were  right, 
and  therefore  strong.  Leo  X.,  with  God's  eternal 
truth,  but  encircled  by  all  the  Graces  and  Muses, 
was  at  a  disadvantage  With  those  strong  and  plain- 
spoken  men.  In  fact,  the  eternal  ally  of  human  er- 
ror is  human  truth.  It  is  because  men  who  are 
right  do  wrong  that  men  who  are  wrong  seem 
right  ;  and  if  men  in  general  were  fit  to  be  priests 
of  God,  there  would  be  on  earth  no  power  to  op- 
pose the  Catholic  Church.  St.  Paul  had  protested, 
St.  John  Chrysostom  had  protested,  St.  Peter  Da- 
mian  had  protested,  St.  Bernard  had  protested,  St. 
Catherine  of  Sienna  had  protested,  and  yet  there 
was  no  Protestantism.  To  protest  was  well  and  is 
well,  but  to  seek  to  found  a  religion  upon  a  protest 
is  madness  ;  and  this  is  Protestantism. 

With  Protestants  purity  of  dogma  is  out  of  the 
question  ;  and  nothing,  therefore,  remains  to  them 
but  purity  of  morals.  To  this  they  must  cling  like 
drowning  men  to  straws.  Protestantism,  if  consid- 
ered from  a  doctrinal  point  of  view,  is  nihilism. 
Gather  up  the  hundred  sects  which,  taken  collec- 
tively, are  called  Protestantism,  and  we  will  find 
every  positive  religious  dogma  excluded  ;  not  even 
the  personal  existence  of  God  remains.  Mr.  Mat- 
thew Arnold  is  a  true  Bible-Protestant,  who  has  a 
little  sect  of  his  own,  and  all  that  he  holds  is  that 
there  is  "a  Power  in  us,  not  ourselves,  which  makes 


1 56  Injluence  of  Catholicism  and 

for  righteousness  "  ;  and  this  he  has  discovered  to 
be  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  Scripture  teaching. 
Doctrinal  Protestantism  is  like  the  wrong  side  of  a 
piece  of  tapestry  with  its  fag-ends  hanging  in 
patches,  twisted  and  jumbled  ;  and  yet  they  are  the 
very  substance  out  of  Avhich  has  been  wrought  a 
work  of  divine  beauty.  The  dogmatic  weakness  of 
Protestantism  throws  its  whole  energy  upon  the 
moral  side  of  religion.  Its  utter  falseness,  when  we 
accept  the  fact  that  Christ  has  established  a  divine 
system  of  faith,  is  so  manifest  that  no  impartial 
thinker  would  hesitate  to  give  his  full  assent  to  the 
sentiment  of  Rousseau  :  "  Show  me  that  in  reli- 
gious matters  I  must  accept  authority,  and  I  shall 
become  a  Catholic  at  once."  Supposing  the  Chris- 
tian religion  to  be  what  it  is  commonly  held  to  be 
by  both  Catholics  and  Protestants,  it  necessarily 
follows  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  only  logical 
as  it  is  the  only  historical  Christianity.  This,  we 
believe,  is  the  almost  universally-received  opinion 
of  non-Christian  writers  in  our  own  da)'',  in  which, 
for  the  first  time  since  the  Reformation,  a  consid- 
erable number  of  learned  men  who  are  neither  Ca- 
tholic nor  Protestant  have  been  able  to  view  this 
subject  dispassionately.  We  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  these  writers  prefer  the  church  to  the  sects; 
on  the  contrary,  they  are  partial  to  these  because 
in  their  workings  they  perceive,  as  they  think,  the 
breaking-up  and  dissolution  of  the  whole  Christian 
system.  Protestantism  is  valuable  in  their  eyes  as 
a  stage  in  what  Herbert  Spencer  calls  "  the  univer- 
sal religious  thaw  "  which  is  going  on  around  us. 


Protesta7itisni  on  National  Prosperity,   157 

If  there  has  been  no  divine  revelation,  then  what- 
ever tends  to  weaken  the  claim  of  the  church  to  be 
the  depository  of  such  revelation  is  good,  especially 
as  her  claim  is  the  only  one  which  rests  upon  a 
valid  historical  basis.  And  it  is  because  a  very 
large  number  of  men  more  than  half  suspect  there 
never  has  been  a  revelation  that  Protestantism 
meets  with  so  much  favor  from  the  unbelieving  and 
pagan  world,  as  serving  the  purpose  of  an  easy  step- 
ping-stone from  the  strong  and  pronounced  super- 
naturalism  of  the  church  to  the  nature-worship  of 
Darwin  and  Spencer  or  the  German  Ciilturists. 

Macaulay  was  struck  and  puzzled  by  what  his 
keen  eye  could  not  fail  to  perceive  to  be  so  univer- 
sal a  phenomenon  as  to  have  the  force  of  a  law  of 
history. 

"It  is  surely  remarkable,"  says  this  brilliant 
writer,  "that  neither  the  moral  revolution  of  the 
eighteenth  century  nor  the  moral  counter-revolution 
of  the  nineteenth  should  have  in  any  perceptible 
degree  added  to  the  domain  of  Protestantism. 
During  the  former  period  whatever  was  lost  to  Ca- 
tholicism was  lost  also  to  Christianity ;  during  the 
latter  whatever  was  regained  by  Christianity  in  Ca- 
tholic countries  was  regained  also  by  Catholicism. 
We  should  actually  have  expected  that  many 
minds,  on  the  way  from  superstition  to  infidelity, 
or  on  the  way  back  from  infidelity  to  superstition, 
would  have  stopped  at  an  intermediate  point.  Be- 
tween the  doctrines  taught  in  the  schools  of  the 
Jesuits,  and  those  which  were  maintained  at  the 
little  supper-parties  of  the  Baron  Holbach,  there  is 


158  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

a  vast  interval  in  which  the  human  mind,  it  should 
seem,  might  find  for  itself  some  resting-place  more 
satisfactory  than  either  of  the  two  extremes  ;  and 
at  the  time  of  the  Reformation  millions  found  such 
a  resting-place.  Whole  nations  then  renounced 
popery  without  ceasing  to  believe  in  a  First  Cause, 
in  a  future  life,  or  in  the  divine  authority  of  Chris- 
tianity. In  the  last  century,  on  the  contrary,  when 
a  Catholic  renounced  his  belief  in  the  Real  Pre- 
sence, it  was  a  thousand  to  one  that  he  renounced 
his  belief  in  the  Gospel  too  ;  and  when  the  reaction 
took  place,  with  belief  in  the  Gospel  came  back 
belief  in  the  Real  Presence.  We  by  no  means  ven- 
ture to  deduce  from  these  phenomena  any  general 
law ;  but  we  think  it  a  most  remarkable  fact  that 
no  Christian  nation  which  did  not  adopt  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Reformation  before  the  end  of  the  six- 
teenth century  should  ever  have  adopted  them. 
Catholic  communities  have  since  that  time  become 
infidel  and  become  Catholic  again,  but  none  has  be- 
come Protestant." 

There  could  not  be  a  more  satisfactory  proof  of 
the  transitional  and  accidental  nature  of  Protestan- 
tism. Like  all  human  revolutions,  it  grew  out  of 
antecedent  circumstances  ;  and  these  were  prima- 
rily political  and  social  and  only  incidentally  reli- 
gious. The  faith  in  the  divine  authority  of  the 
Christian  religion  was  at  that  time  absolute,  and  not 
at  all  affected  by  the  tendency  to  scepticism  ob- 
servable among  a  few  of  the  Humanists.  The  poli- 
tical power  of  the  pope,  however,  together  with  his 
peculiar  temporal  relations  to  the  German  Empire, 


Protestantistn  on  Natioital  Prosperity.   159 

had  gradually  created  throughout  Germany  a  very 
strong  national  prejudice  against  his  authority, 
which,  upon  the  slightest  provocation,  was  ready  to 
break  out  "into  downright  hatred  of  the  Papacy. 
The  worldly  lives  and  ways  of  some  of  the  popes 
had  been  as  fuel  for  the  conflagration  which  was  to 
burst  forth.  Men,  unconsciously  it  may  be,  grew 
accustomed  to  look  upon  the  Christian  religion 
and  the  Papacy  as  distinct  and  separable ;  and  the 
temper  of  the  public  mind,  while  remaining  rever- 
ential toward  Christ  and  his  religion,  was  embittered 
against  his  vicar.  When,  from  amidst  the  social 
abuses  and  political  antagonisms  of  Germany, 
Luther,  in  the  name  of  Christ,  denounced  the  pope, 
his  voice  struck  precisely  the  note  for  which  the 
public  ear  was  listening,  and,  as  Macaulay  says, 
whole  nations  renounced  allegiance  to  the  pope 
without  giving  up  faith  in  God  and  his  Christ.  This 
was  done  in  the  excitement  of  revolutionary  enthu- 
siasm, when  passion  and  madness  made  deliberation 
impossible,  and  when  a  thoughtful  and  analytical 
study  of  the  constitution  of  the  church  Avas  out  of 
the  question.  The  Reformers  imagined  that  they 
could  abolish  the  pope  and  yet  save  Christianity, 
just  as  in  France,  two  centuries  and  a  half  later,  it 
was  thought  possible  to  abolish  God  and  yet  save 
the  principle  of  authority,  without  which  society 
cannot  exist.  And,  indeed,  it  is  as  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  this  world,  with  its  universal  evidence 
of  design  and  adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  could 
have  come  into  existence  without  the  action  of  a 
supreme  and  intelligent  Being,  as  to  think  that  the 


1 60  Influence  of  CatJiolicisui  and 

system  of  religious  truths  taught  by  Christ  can  have 
either  unity  or  authority  amongst  men  without  a 
living  centre  and  visible  representative  of  both. 
Protestants,  in  rejecting  the  primacy  of  the  pope, 
were  forced  to  accept  as  fundamental  to  their  faith 
a  principle  of  so  purgative  and  drastic  a  nature  that, 
in  the  general  process  of  sloughing  of  religious 
thought  which  it  brings  on,  it  is  itself  finally  carried 
away  into  the  vacuum  of  nihilism. 

This  became  evident  as  soon  as  the  attempt  was 
made  to  agree  upon  articles  of  belief.  New  here- 
sies sprang  up  day  after  day,  and  complete  chaos 
would  have  ensued  from  the  beginning  had  not  the 
different  states  taken  hold  of  one  or  other  of  the 
sects  and  "  established  "  it,  thus,  by  the  aid  of  the 
temporal  power,  giving  to  it  a  kind  of  consistency, 
but  at  the  same  time  depriving  it  of  vitality.  Thus 
what  Macaulay  regarded  as  so  remarkable — that  no 
Christian  nation  which  did  not  adopt  the  principles 
of  the  Reformation  before  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century  should  ever  have  adopted  them — and  he 
might  as  well  have  made  the  proposition  universal, 
since  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should  limit  it  to 
Christian  nations,  as  it  is  well  known  that  in  no- 
thing has  Protestantism  given  more  striking  proof 
of  its  impotence  than  in  its  utter  failure  to  convert 
the  heathen — this,  we  say,  far  from  surprising  us, 
seems  so  natural  that  we  cannot  understand  how  an 
observant  mind  should  think  it  strange. 

Protestantism  was,  in  the  main,  the  product  of 
the  peculiar  political  and  social  condition  of  Europe 
during  the  last  period  of  the   middle  ages,  and  to 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   1 6 1 

expect  Catholic  nations,  or  indeed  individual  Catho- 
lics of  any  intellectual  or  moral  character,  to  become 
Protestant  in  our  day  argues  a  total  want  of  power 
to  grasp  this  subject.  As  well  might  one  hope  to 
see  the  pterodactyls  and  ichthyosauri  of  a  past 
geologic  era  swimming  in  our  rivers.  Catholics 
there  are,  indeed,  now,  as  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
who  become  sceptics,  who  abandon  all  belief  in 
Christianity,  but  none  who  become  Protestants  ; 
for  we  cannot  consider  such  persons  as  Achilli  or 
Edith  O'Gorman  as  instances  of  conversion  of  any 
kind.  A  very  limited  acquaintance  with  Catholics 
and  Catholic  thought  will  suffice  to  convince  any 
reflecting  mind  that  for  us  there  is  no  alternative 
but  to  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  church  or  to 
renounce  faith  in  Christ.  Was  there  ever  fairer 
field  for  heresy  to  flourish  in  than  that  which 
opened  up  before  Old  Catholicism  at  its  birth? 
But  it  was  still-born.  To  this  day  its  sponsors 
have  not  dared  define  its  relation  to  the  pope ;  and 
until  this  is  done  it  remains  without  character.  At 
any  rate,  it  does  not  claim  to  be  Protestant. 

Turning  to  view  the  present  condition  of  Protes- 
tantism, we  are  struck  by  the  contrast.  The  very 
word  "  Protestant "  is  without  meaning  when 
applied  to  two-thirds  of  the  non-Catholics  of  Ger- 
many, England,  and  the  United  States.  Their 
mental  state  is  one  of  disbelief  in,  or  indifference 
to,  all  forms  of  positive  religion  ;  and  if  occasionally 
they  are  roused  to  some  feeling  against  the  church, 
it  is  through  an  association  of  ideas,  traditional 
with  them,   which    places    her  in  antagonism  with 


1 62  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

their  political  theories  and  national  prejudices. 
Among  earnest  and  reflecting  Protestants  who  are 
united  with  one  or  other  of  the  sects,  there  are  two 
opposite  currents  of  religious  thought  of  a  strongly- 
marked  and  well-defined  character.  Those  who 
are  borne  on  the  one  are  being  carried  farther  and 
farther  away  from  the  historic  teachings  of  Christ, 
and  are  busied  in  trying  to  dress  out  in  Biblical 
phraseology  some  of  the  various  cosmic  or  panthe- 
istic philosophies  of  the  day.  They  very  generally 
assume  that  religion  has  nothing  to  do  with  theo- 
logy, nor,  consequently,  with  doctrines  and  dogmas. 
As  its  home  is  the  heart,  its  realm  is  the  world  of 
sentiment  ;  and  so  it  matters  not  what  we  believe, 
provided  only  we  feel  good.  Opposed  to  this  cur- 
rent, which  is  bearing  with  it  all  the  distinctive 
landmarks  of  the  Christian  religion,  is  another  which 
is  carrying  men  back  to  the  church.  In  fact,  all 
great  minds  among  Protestants  who  have  been 
strongly  impressed  by  the  objective  character  of 
Christian  truth  have  been  drawn  towards  the  Catho- 
lic Church.  Who  can  have  failed  to  perceive,  for 
instance — to  mention  only  the  three  greatest  who 
have  occupied  themselves  with  religious  questions — 
how  Leibnitz,  Bacon,  and  Bishop  Butler,  in  their 
intellectual  apprehension  of  the  Christian  system, 
were,  in  spite  of  themselves,  attracted  to  the 
church  ?  Or  who  that  is  acquainted  with  the  Eng- 
lish Catholic  literature  of  our  own  day  is  ignorant 
of  the  divine  illumination  which  many  of  the  most 
intellectual  and  reverent  natures  from  the  sects  of 
Protestantism  have  found  in  the  teachings  of  the 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   1 63 

one  Catholic  Church  ?  In  this  way,  by  a  process 
of  supernatural  or  natural  selection,  the  fragments 
of  Protestantism  are  being  assimilated  to  the  church 
or  are  disappearing  in  the  sea  of  unbelief  in  which 
even  now  they  are  seen  only  as  barren  islands  in 
the  wild  waste  of  waters. 

These  considerations  must  be  borne  in  mind  by 
whoever  would  take  a  comprehensive  view  of  the 
question  which  we  propose  now  to  discuss.  In  the 
first  place,  by  reflecting  upon  them  we  shall  find  no 
difficulty  in  accounting  for  the  marked  difference 
in  tone  and  character  between  Catholic  and  Protes- 
tant controversy,  by  which  no  attentive  observer 
can  have  failed  to  be  struck.  Taking  for  granted 
the  existence  of  God  and  the  divinity  of  Christ,  as 
admitted  by  the  earlier  Protestant  sects,  the  logical 
position  of  the  church  is  unassailable,  which,  as  we 
have  already  stated,  is  generally  conceded  by  im- 
partial non-Christian  thinkers. 

As  a  consequence,  Catholic  controversialists,  as- 
sured of  the  absolute  coherence  of  their  whole 
system  with  the  fundamental  dogma  of  the  divine 
mission  of  Christ,  have  been  chiefly  concerned  with 
showing  the  logical  viciousness  of  the  essential 
principles  of  Protestantism.  They  have,  indeed, 
not  omitted  to  remark  upon  the  moral  unfitness  of 
such  men  as  Henry  VIII.,  Luther,  Knox,  and 
Zwingli  to  be  the  divinely-chosen  agents  of  a 
reformation  in  the  religion  of  Christ ;  but  such  ob- 
servations have  been  incidental  to  the  main  course 
of  the  argument,  and  this  is  alike  true  of  our  more 


164  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

learned  discussions  and  of  our  popular  contro- 
versies. 
-/"  Catholic  writers — allowing  for  individual  excep- 
tions— have  not  felt  that,  to  show  the  falsity  of 
Protestantism,  it  was  necessary  to  denounce  Pro- 
testants or  to  stamp  upon  them  any  mark  of  infamy. 
They  have  treated  them  as  men  who  were  wrong, 
not  as  men  who  were  wicked.  Protestant  contro- 
versy, on  the  other  hand,  presents  for  our  con- 
sideration characteristics  of  a  very  different  nature. 
In  the  consciousness  of  their  inability  to  settle  upon 
a  fixed  creed,  which  has  been  shown  by  history, 
and  from  the  necessarily  feeble  manner  in  which 
articles  of  faith  could  be  held  by  them,  on  account 
of  the  disagreement  and  conflict  of  opinion  among 
themselves,  Protestant  writers  were  forced  to  treat 
their  religion,  not  as  a  doctrine,  but  as  a  tendency  ; 
and  for  this  reason,  together  with  the  natural  hatred 
which  men  entertain  for  a  church  or  government 
against  which  they  have  rebelled,  they  were  led  to 
draw  contrasts  between  the  results  of  Protestantism 
and  Catholicity  ;  so  that  it  became  customary  to 
attribute  all  the  enlightenment,  morality,  progress, 
and  liberty  of  the  world  to  Protestantism,  and  to 
represent  Catholics  as  cruel,  ignorant,  corrupt,  and 
in  every  way  depraved.  Luther,  as  we  should 
naturally  expect,  led  the  way  in  this  style  of  con- 
troversy. 

"  The  Papists,"  he  said,  "  are  for  the  most  part 
mere  gross  blockheads.  .  .  .  The  pope  and  his 
crew  are  mere  worshippers  of  idols  and  servants  of 
the  devil.  .  .  .  Pope,  cardinals,  bishops,  not  a  soul 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.    165 

of  them  has  read  the  Bible  ;  'tis  a  book  unknown  to 
them.  They  are  a  pack  of  guzzling,  stuffing  wretches, 
rich,  wallowing  in  wealth  and  laziness.  .  .  .  Seeing 
the  pope  is  Antichrist,  I  believe  him  to  be  a  devil 
incarnate.  .  .  .  The  pope  is  the  last  blaze  in  the 
lamp  which  will  go  out  and  ere  long  be  extin- 
guished— the  last  instrument  of  the  devil,  that 
thunders  and  lightens  with  sword  and  bull ;  .  .  . 
but  the  Spirit  of  God's  mouth  has  seized  upon  that 
shameless  strumpet.  .  .  .  Antichrist  is  the  Pope 
and  the  Turk  together.  .  .  .  The  pope  is  not  God's 
image,  but  his  ape.  .  .  .  Popedom  is  founded  on 
mere  lies  and  fables.  ...  A  friar  is  evil  every  way ; 
the  preaching  friars  are  proud  buzzards  ;  all  who 
serve  the  pope  are  damned  ;  the  Papists  are  devoid 
of  shame  and  Christianity."  *, 

This  is  the  style  of  Protestant  controversy  which, 
except  in  form,  still  lingers  in  this  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. Protestant  devotion,  it  may  be  said  without 
sarcasm  or  exaggeration,  consists  essentially  in  a 
holy  horror  of  popery.  Were  it  possible  to  elimi- 
nate the  Catholic  Church  from  human  society,  Pro- 
testantism would  at  once  fatally  assume  an  attitude 
towards  the  world  wholly  different  from  that  in 
which  it  now  stands.'  At  present,  when  attacked 
by  evolutionistic  pantheism — which  means  all  the 
sophistries  of  the  day — it  takes  refuge  behind  the 
historic  fortress  of  Christianity,  the  Catholic  Church, 
and,  when  encountered  by  the  church,  it  makes  an 
alliance  with  cosmism  or  anything  else.  Were  the 
Catholic  Church  not  in  existence,  it  would  be  forced 

*  The  Table-Talk  of  Martin  Luther^  pp.  200,  206,  213,  ei  passim. 


1 66  Injiuence  of  Catholicism  and 

at  once  to  build  a  fortress  of  its  own  ;  for  the  Bible 
is  only  a  breastwork,  which  must  be  in  charge  of  a 
commander  in-chief  if  we  hope  to  hold  it  for  the 
sovereign  Lord.  From  the  beginning,  then,  Pro- 
testants branded  Catholics  with  a  mark  of  infamy  ; 
they  were  idolaters,  worse  than  pagans,  for  the 
most  part  gross  blockheads,  who  fall  an  easy  prey 
to  the  designing  arts  of  priests  and  monks,  who  are 
only  knaves  and  rogues,  whose  chief  aim  is  to  carry 
out  the  fiendish  purposes  of  the  pope,  the  arch- 
enemy. Antichrist,  the  devil  in  the  flesh  ;  and  thus 
the  church  becomes  the  Woman  of  Babylon,  flam- 
ing in  scarlet,  and  alluring  the  nations  to  debauch. 

No  evidence,  therefore,  is  needed  to  show  that 
Catholics  are  immoral,  depraved,  thoroughly  cor- 
rupt. To  doubt  it  would  be  to  question  the  truth 
of  Protestantism  and  to  believe  that  something 
good  might  come  out  of  Nazareth.  In  good  sooth, 
do  not  the  Catholics,  as  M.  de  Laveleye  says,  admit 
the  fact  themselves? 

We  often  hear  persons  express  surprise  that  intel- 
ligent and  honest  Protestants  should  still,  after 
such  sad  experience,  be  so  eager  to  believe  the 
"  awful  disclosures "  of  "  escaped  nuns,"  and  to 
patronize  that  kind  of  lecture — of  which,  thank 
God !  Protestants  have  the  monopoly — delivered  to 
men  or  women  only,  in  which  the  abominations  of 
the  confessional  are  revealed  and  the  general  pre- 
ternatural wickedness  of  priests,  monks,  and  nuns 
is  made  fully  manifest.  This,  to  us,  we  must  say, 
has  never  seemed  strange.  The  doctrine  of  total 
depravity  is  an  article  of  Protestant  faith,  and,  when 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.  167 

applied  to  Catholics,  to  none  other  have  Protes- 
tants ever  clung  with  such  unwavering  firmness  and 
perfect  unanimity.  When  disagreeing  about  every- 
thing else,  they  have  never  failed  to  find  a  point  of 
union  in  this.  Even  after  having  lived  and  dealt 
with  Catholics  who  are  kind-hearted,  pure,  and 
fair-minded,  in  the  true  Protestant  there  still  lurks 
a  vague  kind  of  suspicion  that  there  must  be  some 
mysterious  and  secret  diabolism  in  them  which 
eludes  his  observation  ;  that  after  all  they  may  be 
only  "as  mild-mannered  men  as  ever  scuttled  ship 
or  cut  a  throat "  ;  and  after  his  reason  has  been 
fully  convinced  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  the 
only  historical  Christianity,  he  is  still  able  to  re- 
main a  strong  Protestant  by  falling  back  upon  the 
undoubted  total  depravity  of  Papists.  Dr.  New- 
man, in  his  Apologia,  the  most  careful  and  instruc- 
tive self-analysis  which  has  been  written  in  this 
century,  or  probably  in  any  other,  declares  that 
after  he  had  become  thoroughly  persuaded  of  the 
truth  of  the  Catholic  Church  his  former  belief  that 
the  pope  was  Antichrist  still  remained  like  a  stain 
upon  his  imagination  ;  and  yet  he  had  never  been 
an  ultra-Protestant.  Many  a  Protestant  has  ceased 
to  believe  in  Christ,  without  giving  up  his  faith  in 
the  pope  as  Antichrist. 

It  is  not  surprising,  in  view  of  all  this,  that  Pro- 
testants should  have  habitually  held  the  church  re- 
sponsible for  the  evil  deeds  of  Catholics. 

When  quite  recently  the  excited  Germans  charged 
the  dynamite  plot  of  Thomassen  upon  our  Ameri- 
can civilization,  we  replied,  with  perfect  justice,  that 


1 68  Influence  of  Calholicism  and 

such  crimes  are  anomalies,  the  guilt  of  which  ought 
not  to  be  laid  upon  any  nation,  and  all  reasonable 
men  admitted  the  evident  good  sense  of  our  answer ; 
but  Protestants  the  world  over  have  been  uiTanimous 
in  seeking  to  hold  up  the  church  to  the  execration 
of  mankind  as  responsible  for  the  St.  Bartholomew 
massacre.  Is  Protestantism  answerable  for  Crom- 
well's massacres  at  Drogheda  and  Wexford  ?  Re- 
ligious fanaticism,  no  doubt,  had  much  to  do  in 
urging  him  to  butcher  idolaters  and  slaves  of  Satan  ; 
but  we  should  blush  for  shame  were  we  capable  of 
thinking  for  a  moment  that  such  inhumanities  are 
either  produced  or  approved  by  the  real  spirit  of 
the  Protestant  religion. 

We  know  of  nothing  in  the  Catholic  Church 
which  in  any  way  corresponds  to  Protestant  anti- 
popery  literature ;  indeed,  we  doubt  whether  in  the 
whole  history  of  literature  anything  so  disgraceful 
and  disreputable  as  this  can  be  found,  unless,  pos- 
sibly, it  be  that  which  is  professedly  obscene,  but 
which  has  nowhere  ever  had  a  recognized  existence; 
and  we  question  whether  even  this  is  as  discredita- 
ble to  human  nature  as  the  "  awful  disclosures  "  and 
"  lectures  to  men  or  women  only  "  of  Protestants. 

In  discussing  the  comparative  morality  of  Catho- 
lic and  Protestant  nations  it  would  be  more  satis- 
factory, even  though  it  should  not  be  more  conclu- 
sive, to  consider  their  respective  virtues  rather  than 
their  vices.  There  would  seem  to  be  neither  good 
sense  nor  logic  in  taking  the  individuals  and  classes 
that  are  least  brought  under  religious  influences  of 
any  kind,   in  order  to    use    their  depravity  as   an 


Protestantism  on  Natiotial  Prosperity.  1 69 

argument  for  or  against  the  church  or  Protestantism. 
In  the  apostolic  body  one  out  of  twelve  was  a  thief 
and  traitor,  yet  neither  Catholics  nor  Protestants  are 
in  the  Habit  of  concluding  from  this  that  they  must 
all  have  been  rogues  and  hypocrites.  The  amount 
of  crime,  one  would  think,  is  but  a  poor  test  of  the 
amount  of  virtue.  As  the  greatest  sinners  have 
made  the  greatest  saints,  so  in  the  church  depravity 
may  co-exist  with  the  most  heroic  virtue,  though, 
of  course,  not  in  the  same  individual.  Our  divine 
Saviour  plainly  declares  that  in  his  church  the  good 
shall  be  mingled  with  the  bad  ;  that  the  cockle  shall 
grow  with  the  wheat  till  the  harvest  time ;  that 
some  shall  call  him  Lord  and  Master,  and  yet  do 
not  the  will  of  his  Father ;  that  even,  with  regard  to 
those  who  sit  in  the  chair  of  Moses — and,  let  us  add, 
of  Peter — though  their  authority  must  ever  be  ac- 
knowledged, yet  are  not  their  lives  always  to  be 
imitated,  nor  approved  of  even.  It  is  manifestly 
contrary  to  the  teaching  of  Christ  to  make  the  note 
of  sanctity  in  his  church  consist  in  the  individual 
holiness  of  each  and  every  member.  He  is  no 
Puritan,  though  he  is  the  all-holy  God.  A  puristic 
religion  is  essentially  narrow,  self-conscious,  and 
unsympathetic  ;  it  draws  a  line  here  on  earth  be- 
tween the  elect  and  the  reprobate  ;  its  disciples  eat 
not  with  sinners,  nor  enter  into  their  abodes,  nor 
hold  out  to  them  the  pleading  hands  of  large-heart- 
ed charity.  Such  a  faith  does  not  grow  upon 
men  ;  it  does  not  win  and  convert  them  to  God. 

If,  instead  of  comparing  the  crimes,  we  should 
consider  the  respective  virtues,  of  Catholic  and  Pro. 

14 


1 70  hijiuaice  of  CatJiolicisin  and 

tcstant  nations,  we  should  at  once  be  struck  by  the 
difference  in  their  standards  of  morality.  The  most 
practical  way  of  determining  the  real  standard  of 
morality  of  any  religion  is  to  study  the  character 
of  its  saints.  There  we  find  religious  ideals  made 
tangible  and  fully  discernible.  Here  at  once  we 
perceive  that  there  is  an  essential  difference  between 
the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  standard  of  morality. 
The  lives  of  our  saints,  even  when  understood  by 
Protestants,  generally  repel  them.  They  are,  in 
their  eyes,  useless  lives,  idle  lives,  superstitious 
lives,  unnatural  and  inhuman.  We  take  the  words 
of  Christ,  *'  If  thou  wouldst  be  perfect,  go  sell  what 
thou  hast,  give  it  to  the  poor,  and  come  and  follow 
me,"  in  their  full  and  complete  literal  meaning. 
The  highest  life  is  to  leave  father  and  mother,  to 
have  nor  wife  nor  children,  nor  temporal  goods  except 
what  barely  suffices,  and  to  cleave  to  Christ  only  with 
all  one's  soul  in  poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience. 
Now,  this  life  of  prayer  in  poverty,  chastity,  and 
obedience  is  an  offence  to  Protestants.  They  do 
not  believe  in  perfect  chastity,  they  hold  religious 
obedience  to  be  a  slavery,  and  poverty,  in  their  eyes, 
is  ridiculous.  Inasmuch  as  the  monks  tilled  the 
earth,  transcribed  books,  and  taught  school,  they 
receive  a  partial  recognition  from  the  Protestant 
world  ;  but  inasmuch  as  they  were  bound  by  reli- 
gious vows  they  excite  disgust.  We  should  say, 
then,  that  the  distinctive  trait  of  Catholic  morality 
is  ascetic,  while  the  Protestant  is  utilitarian.  The 
one  primarily  regards  the  world  that  is  to  be,  the 
other  that  which  already  is.     The  one  inclines  us  to 


Protesta7itism  07i  National  Prospci'ify. 


171 


look  upon  this  as  a  worthless  world  to  lose  or  win  ; 
the  other  is  shrewd  and  calculating — this  is  the  best 
wfe  have  any  practical  experience  of;  it  is  the  part 
of  wisdom  to  make  the  most  of  it.  The  one  seems 
to  be  more  certain  of  the  future  life,  the  other  of 
the  present.  It  is  needless  to  prolong  the  contrast, 
and  we  shall  simply  confess  that  we  have  always 
been  inclined  to  the  opinion  of  those  who  hold  that 
Protestantism,  in  its  aims  and  direct  tendencies,  is 
more  favorable  to  what  is  called  material  progress 
than  Catholicism.  In  fact,  one  cannot  realize  th^ 
personal  survival  of  the  soul  through  eternity,  and 
at  the  same  time  be  supremely  interested  in  stocks 
or  the  price  of  cotton. 

Not  that  the  church  discourages  efforts  which 
have  as  their  object  the  material  interests  of  man- 
kind ;  but,  in  her  view,  our  duties  to  God  are  of  the 
first  importance,  and  to  these  all  others  are  subor- 
dinate. What  doth  it  profit  ?  she  is  always  asking, 
whereas  Protestantism  is  busy  trying  to  show  us 
how  very  profitable  and  pleasant  the  Reformation 
has  made  this  world — and  virtuous,  too,  since  hon- 
esty is  the  best  policy  and  enlightened  self-interest 
the  standard  of  morals.  It  is  the  old  story — God 
and  the  world,  the  supernatural  and  the  natural, 
progress  from  above  and  progress  from  below. 

But  we  feel  that  it  is  time  Ave  should  give  our 
readers  proof  that  we  have  no  desire  to  avoid 
direct  issue  with  M.  de  Laveleye.  We  flatly 
deny,  then,  his  assertion  that  the  Catholic  nations 
are  more  immoral  than  the  Protestant ;  and  when 
he  further  affirms  that  Catholic  writers  themselves 


I  72  Influence  of  Catholicisju  and 

— for  his  words  can  have  no  other  meaning — admit 
this,  he  h'es  under  a  mistake  for  which  there  can  be 
no   possible   excuse.     In    the    statement    of  facts, 
however,  which  we  propose  now  to  give,  we  make 
no  use  whatever  of  the  testimony  of  Catholics,  but 
rely  exclusively  upon  the  authority  of  Protestants 
and  of  statistics  ;  and  that  our  readers  may  have  the 
benefit  of  observations  extending  over  considerable 
time  as  well  as  space,  we  will  not  confine  ourselves 
to  the  most  recent  writers  or  statistics  on  the  sub- 
ject under  discussion.     Laing,  a  Scotch  Presbyterian 
and  a  most  conscientious  and  observant  traveller,  who 
wrote  some  thirty-five  years  ago,  says  of  the  Prench  : 
"  They  are,  I  believe,  a  more  honest  people  than 
the    British.  ...    It   is   a    fine   distinction   of  the 
French  national  character  and  social  economy  that 
practical  morality  is  more  generally  taught  through 
manners  among  and  by  the  people  themselves  than 
in  any  country  in  Europe."*     Alison,  the  historian, 
writing  about  the  same  time,  but  referring  to  the 
early  part  of  this  century,  says  that  the  proportion 
of  crime  to  the  inhabitants  was  tzvelve  times  greater 
in  Prussia  than  in  France.f     To  this  may  be  added 
the  testimony  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  Autobio- 
graphy^ published  since  his  death,  who  passed   a 
considerable  portion  of  his  life  in  France.     Referring 
to  his  sojourn  there  when  quite  a  young  man,  he 
says: 

"  Having  so  little  experience  of  English  life,  and 
the  few  people  I  knew  being  mostly  such  as  had 

♦  Notes  of  a  Traveller^  pp.  79,  So. 
^  ■  ■     i  +  History  0/ Euro/>e,  vol.  iii.  chap,  x.wli.  10,  11. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity,    i  ']^ 

public  objects  of  a  large  and  personally  disinterest- 
ed kind  at  heart,  I  was  ignorant  of  the  low  moral 
tone  of  what  in  England  is  called  society  :  the  habit 
of,  not  indeed  professing,  but  taking  for  granted  in 
every  mode  of  implication  that  conduct  is  of  course 
always  directed  towards  lowand  petty  objects;  the 
absence  of  high  feelings,  which  manifests  itself  by 
sneering  depreciation  of  all  demonstrations  of  them, 
and  by  general  abstinence  (except  among  a  few  of 
the  stricter  religionists)  from  professing  any   high 
principles  of  action  at  all,  except   in  those  preor- 
dained cases  in  which  such  profession  is  put  on  as 
part  of  the  costume  and  formalities  of  the  occasion. 
I  could  not  then  know  or  estimate  the  difference 
between  this  manner  of  existence  and  that  of  a  peo- 
ple like  the  French,  whose  faults,  if  equally  real,  are 
at   all  events   different  ;  among  whom    sentiments 
which,  by  comparison  at  least,  may  be  called  elevat- 
ed are  the  current  coin  of  human  intercourse,  both 
in  books  and  in  private  life,  and,  though  often  eva- 
porating in  profession,  are  yet  kept  alive  in  the  na- 
tion at  large  by  constant  exercise  and  stimulated 
by  sympathy,  so  as  to  form  a  living  and  active  part 
of  the  existence  of  a  great  number  of  persons,  and 
to  be  recognized  and  understood  by  all.     Neither 
could  I  then  appreciate  the  general  culture  of  the 
understanding,  which  results  from  the  habitual  ex- 
ercise of  the  feelings,  and  is  thus  carried  down  into 
the  most  uneducated  classes  of  several  countries  on 
the  Continent,  in  a  degree  not  equalled  in  England 
among   the   so-called   educated,  except   where   an 
unusual  tenderness  of  conscience  leads  to  a  habitual 


1 74  hifltie7ice  of  CatJiolicism  and 

exercise  of  the  intellect  on  questions  of  right  and 
■    wrong."  * 

This  is  strong  testimony  when  we  consider  that 
it  comes  from  an  Englishman.  In  speaking  of  the 
.  elder  Austin  the  same  writer  says:  "He  had  a 
strong  distaste  for  the  general  meanness  of  English 
life,  the  absence  of  enlarged  thoughts  and  unselfish 
desires,  the  low  objects  on  which  the  faculties  of 
all  classes  of  the  English  are  intent. "f  Mill's  opin- 
ion of  the  French  is  confirmed  by  Lecky,  who 
writes  :  "  No  other  nation  has  so  habitual  and  vivid  a 
sympathy  for  great  struggles  for  freedom  beyond  its 
border.  No  other  literature  exhibits  so  expansive 
and  oecumenical  a  genius,  or  expounds  so  skilfully 
or  appreciates  so  generously  foreign  ideas.  In  no 
other  land  would  a  disinterested  war  for  the  sup- 
port of  a  suffering  nationality  find  so  large  an 
amount  of  support."  % 

Much  has  been  said  and  written  of  the  licentious- 
ness of  the  French,  which  may,  in  part  at  least,  be 
due  to  the  fact  that  they,  more  than  any  other  peo- 
ple, have  known  how  to  make  vice  attractive  by 
taking  from  it  something  of  the  repulsive  coarseness 
which  naturally  belongs  to  it,  but  must  also  be  as- 
cribed to  the  feeling  that  they  are  Catholic,  and 
therefore  sensual.  But  let  us  examine  the  facts  on 
this  subject.  We  again  bring  Laing  forward  as  a 
witness. 

"  Of  all  the  virtues,"  he  says,  "  that  which  the 
domestic  family  education  of  both  the  sexes  most 

"  Autobiografky,'p'p.  sZ,  s<),  i /6id.  p.  177, 

X  Hittory  0/ European  Morals,  p.  160. 


Protestantis7n  on  N'ational  Prosperity.   1 7  5 

obviously  influences — that  which  marks  more  clearly 
than  any  other  the  moral  condition  of  a  society,  the 
home  state  of  moral  and  religious  principles,  the 
efficiency  of  those  principles  in  it,  and  the  amount 
of  that  moral  restraint  upon  passions  and  impulses 
which  it  is  the  object  of  education  and  knowledge 
to  attain — is  undoubtedly  female  chastity.  Will 
any  traveller,  will  any  Prussian,  say  that  this  index- 
virtue  of  the  moral  condition  of  a  people  is  not 
lower  in  Prussia  than  in  almost  any  other  part  of 
Europe?"* 

Acts  which  in  other  countries  would  affect  the 
respectability  and  happiness  of  a  whole  family  for 
generations  are  in  Prussia  looked  upon  as  mere 
youthful  indiscretions.  What  Laing  affirms  of 
Prussia,  Madame  de  Stael,  herself  a  Protestant, 
applies  indiscriminately  to  the  Protestant  States 
of  Germany. 

"  Love,"  she  writes,  "  is  a  religion  in  Germany, 
but  a  poetic  religion  which  tolerates  too  easily  all 
that  sensibility  can  excuse.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that  the  facility  of  divorce  in  the  Protestant  States 
is  prejudicial  to  the  sacredness  of  marriage.  They 
change  husbands  with  as  much  composure  as  if 
they  were  arranging  the  incidents  of  a  drama ;  the 
good-nature  common  to  both  men  and  women  ac- 
counts for  the  absence  of  bitterness  in  these  rup- 
tures ;  and  as  the  Germans  have  more  imagination 
than  passion,  the  most  extravagant  events  take 
place  with  astonishing  tranquillity.  In  this  way, 
nevertheless,  manners  and   character  lose  all  con- 

*  Notes  0/ a  Traveller .  p.  172. 


1 76  hifluetice  of  Catholicisvi  and 

sistency ;  the  spirit  of  paradox  shakes  the  most 
sacred  institutions,  and  all  fixed  rules  of  conduct 
are  destroyed."  * 

But  let  us  take  the  statistics  of  illegitimacy, 
which  is  a  method  of  discussing  the  question  made 
popular  among  Protestants  by  the  Rev.  Hobart 
Seymour  in  his  Evenings  with  the  Romanists. 

The  number  of  illegitimate  births  in  France  for 
every  hundred  was,  in  1858,  7.8;  in  the  same  year 
in  Protestant  Saxony  it  was  16;  in  Protestant  Prus- 
sia, 9.3;  in  Wurtemberg  (Prot.),  16.1;  in  Iceland 
(Prot.  ;  1838-47),  14;  in  Denmark  (1855),  1 1.5  ;  Scot- 
land (1871),  10. 1  ;  Hanover  (1855),  9.9;  Sweden 
(1855),  9.5;  Norway  (1855),  9.3, 

Catholic  France,  then,  judged  by  this  test,  stands 
higher  than  any  Protestant  country  of  which  we 
have  statistical  reports,  except  England  and  Wales, 
where  the  percentage  was,  in  1859,6.5;  but  Eng- 
land and  Wales  are  below  other  Catholic  countries, 
and  notably  far  below  Ireland.  The  rate  of  illegiti- 
macy in  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia  (1828-37)  was  2.1  ; 
in  Ireland  (1865-66),  3.8;  in  Spain  (1859),  5-^  "'  *" 
Tuscany,  6  ;  in  Catholic  Prussia,  6.1. 

In  Scotland  there  are,  in  proportion  to  popula- 
tion, more  than  three  times  as  many  illegitimate 
births  as  in  Ireland  ;  and  in  England  and  Wales 
there  are  more  than  twice  as  many,  and  in  Protes- 
tant Prussia  the  percentage  is  a  third  greater  than 
in  Catholic  Prussia.f 


*  L'AlletnagTies  t.  i,  ch.  3. 

t  For  the  full  discussion  of  the  statistics  of  this  subject  see  The  Catholic 
World,  vol.  ix.  pp.  52  and  845. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity,    i ']'] 

If  chastity,  to  use  Laing's  expression,  is  the  in- 
dex-virtue, the  question  as  to  the  comparative  mo- 
rah'ty  of  Protestant  and  Catholic  nations  may  be 
considered  at  an  end.  Lecky's  words  on  the  Irish 
people  have  often  been  quoted,  to  his  own  regret, 
we  believe. 

"  Had  the  Irish  peasants  been  less  chaste,"  he 
says,  "  they  would  have  been  more  prosperous. 
Had  that  fearful  famine  which  in  the  present  cen- 
tury desolated  the  land  fallen  upon  a  people  who 
thought  more  of  accumulating  subsistence  than  of 
avoiding  sin,  multitudes  might  now  be  living  who 
perished  by  literal  starvation  on  the  dreary  hills  of 
Limerick  or  Skibbereen."  * 

There  is  not  in  all  Europe  a  more  thoroughly 
Protestant  country  than  Sweden.  For  three  hun- 
dred years  its  people  have  been  wholly  withdrawn 
from  Catholic  influences.  During  all  this  time  Pro- 
testantism, upheld  by  the  state,  undisturbed  by  dis- 
sent, with  tli€  education  of  the  people  in  the  hands 
of  the  clergy,  and  a  population  almost  entirely  ru- 
ral, has  had  the  fairest  possible  opportunity  to  show 
what  it  is  capable  of  doing  to  elevate  the  moral 
character  of  a  nation.  What  is  the  result?  In 
1838  Laing  visited  Sweden  and  made  a  careful 
study  of  the  moral  and  social  condition  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  and  he  declares  that  they  are  at  the  very  bot- 
tom of  the  scale  of  European  morality.  In  1836 
one  person  out  of  every  112 — women,  infants,  sick, 
all  included — had  been  accused  of  crime,  and  one 
out  of  every  134  convicted  and  punished.     In   1838 

*  Eurcpean  Morals,  p.  155. 
15 


178  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

there  were  born  in  Stockholm  2,714  children,  of 
whom  1,577  were  legitimate  and  1,137  illegitimate, 
leaving  a  balance  of  only  440  chaste  mothers  out  of 

2,714. 

Drunkenness,  too,  was  more  common  there  than 
in  any  other  country  of  Europe  or  of  the  world. 
Nearly  40,000,000  gallons  of  liquor  were  consumed 
in  1850  by  a  population  of  only  3,000,000,  which 
gives  thirteen  gallons  of  intoxicating  drink  to  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  kingdom. 

If  these  things  could  be  said  of  any  Catholic 
nation,  the  whole  Protestant  world  would  stand 
aghast,  nor  need  other  proof  of  the  absolutely  dia- 
bolical nature  of  popery.  Compare  this  agricul- 
tural and  pastoral  population  with  the  Catholic 
Swiss  mountaineers— who  to  this  day  claim  to  have 
descended  from  a  Swedish  stock,  and  whose  cli- 
mate is  not  greatly  different  from  that  of  Sweden — 
and  we  find  that  the  Catholic  Swiss  are  as  moral 
and  sober  as  the  Protestant  Swedes  are  corrupt  and 
besotted.  Or  compare  them  with  the  Tyrolesc, 
than  whom  there  is  no  more  Catholic  and  liberty- 
loving  people  on  earth. 

"  Honesty  may  be  regarded  as  a  leading  feature 
in  the  character  of  the  Tyrolesc,"  says  Alispn.  .  .  . 
"  In  no  part  of  the  world  are  the  domestic  or  con- 
jugal duties  mort  strictly  or  faithfully  observed,  and 
in  none  do  the  parish  priests  exercise  a  stricter  or 
more  conscientious  control  over  their  flocks.  .  .  . 
Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  feature  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  Tyrolese  is  their  uniform  piety — a  feel- 
ing  which    is    nowhere    so    universally  diffused  as 


ProtestantisjH  on  National  Prosperity.  1 79 

among  their  sequestered  valleys.  .  .  .  On  Sun- 
day the  xvhole  people  flock  to  church  in  their  neat- 
est and  gayest  attire  ;  and  so  great  is  the  number  who 
thus  frequent  these  places  of  worship  that  it  is  not 
unfrequent  to  see  the  peasants  kneeling  on  the 
turf  in  the  church-yard  where  Mass  is  performed, 
from  being  unable  to  fijid  a  place  within  its  walls. 
Regularly  in  the  evening  prayers  are  read  in  every 
family;  and  the  traveller  who  passes  through  the  vil- 
lages at  the  hour  of  twilight  often  sees  through  their 
latticed  windows  the  young  and  the  old  kneeling  to- 
gether round  their  humble  fire,  or  is  warned  of  hisap- 
proach  to  human  habitation  by  hearing  their  evening 
hymns  stealing  through  the  silence  and  solitude  of 
the  forest,  ...  In  one  great  virtue  the  peasants  in 
this  country(in  common,  it  must  be  owned,  with  most 
Catholic  states)  are  particularly  worthy  of  imitation. 
The  virtue  of  r/^^r//;',  which  is  too  much  overlooked 
in  many  Protestant  kingdoms,  is  there  practised  to 
the  greatest  degree  and  by  all  classes  of  people."  * 

With  true  Protestant  condescension  Alison  adds  : 
"  Debased  as  their  religion  is  by  the  absurdities  and 
errors  of  the  Catholic  form  of  worship,  and  mixed 
up  as  it  is  with  innumerable  legends  and  visionary 
tales,  it  yet  preserves  enough  of  the  pure  spirit  of 
its  divine  origin  to  influence  in  a  great  measure  the 
conduct  of  their  private  lives." 

Among  rural  populations  more  than  elsewhere 
the  divine  power  of  the  Christian  religion  is  made 
manifest.  To  the  poor,  the  frugal,  and  the  single- 
hearted  those  heavenly  truths  which  have  changed 

*  KWsov^s  Miscellaneous  Essays,^.  119. 


1 80  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

the  world,  but  which  were  first  listened  to  and  re- 
ceived by  fishermen  and  shepherds,  appeal  with  a 
force  and  directness  which  the  mere  worldHng  and 
comfort-lover  cannot  even  realize.  In  the  presence 
of  nature  so  silent  and  awful,  yet  so  vocal,  every- 
thing inclines  the  heart  of  man  to  hearken  to  the 
voice  of  God.  Mountains  and  rivers;  long-with- 
drawing vales  and  deep-sounding  cataracts  ;  winter's 
snows,  and  spring,  over  whose  heaving  bosom  the 
unseen  hand  weaves  the  tapestry  that  mortal  fingers 
never  made ;  summer's  warm  breath,  and  autumn, 
when  the  strong  year  first  feels  the  chill  of  death, 
and  "tears  from  the  depth  of  some  divine  despair 
rise  in  the  heart  and  gather  to  the  eyes " — all 
speak  of  the  higher  world  which  they  foreshadow 
and  symbolize.  But  in  the  hurry  and  noise  of  the 
city,  with  its  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty,  of 
indulgence  and  want,  of  pride  and  degradation,  the 
pleading  voice  of  religion  is  not  heard  at  all,  or  is 
heard  only  as  a  call  from  the  shore  is  heard  by  men 
who  are  madly  hurrying  down  some  rapid  stream. 
It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  easiest  and  surest 
way  of  getting  at  the  relative  moral  influence  of  the 
Catholic  and  Protestant  religions  is  to  study  their 
action  upon  rural  populations.  We  have  already  es- 
tablished on  the  best  authority  the  incalculable 
moral  elevation  of  the  Catholic  rural  populations 
of  Switzerland  and  the  Tyrol  over  the  Protestants 
of  the  same  class  in  Sweden.  Let  us  now  turn  to 
Great  Britain. 

Kay,  after  having  given  a  table  of.  criminal  sta- 
tistics for  England  and  Wales  for  the  years  1841  and 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.  1 8 1 

1847,  makes  the  following  remarks  upon  the  facts 
there  presented  : 

"  This  table  well  deserves  study.  It  shows  that 
the  proportional  amount  of  crime  to  population 
calculated  in  two  years,  1841  and  1847,  "^V'^s  greater 
in  both  years  in  almost  all  the  agricultural  counties 
of  England  than  it  was'  in  the  mamifactiiring  and 
mining  districts.  .  .  .  With  what  terrible  signifi- 
cance do  these  statistics  plead  the  cause  of  the 
poor  of  our  rural  districts  !  Notwithstanding  that 
a  town-life  necessarily  presents  so  many  more  op- 
portunities for,  and  temptations  to,  vice  than  a 
rural  life ;  notwithstanding  that  the  associations  of 
the  latter  are  naturally  so  muCh  purer  and  so  much 
more  moral  than  those  of  the  former ;  notwith- 
standing the  wonderfully  crowded  state  of  the 
great  manufacturing  cities  of  Lancashire  ;  notwith- 
standing the  constant  influx  of  Irish,  sailors,  va- 
grants, beggars,  and  starving  natives  of  agricultural 
districts  of  England  and  Wales  ;  and  notwithstand- 
ing the  miserable  state  of  most  of  the  primary 
schools  of  those  districts  and  the  great  ignorance 
of  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants,  still,  in  the  face 
of  all  these  and  other  equally  significant  facts,  the 
criminality  of  the  manufacturing  districts  of  Lan- 
cashire is  LESS  in  proportion  to  the  population 
than  that  of  most  of  the  rural  districts  of  England 
and  Wales  !"  "" 

In  Scotland  illegitimacy  is  more  common  in  the 
country  than  in  the  towns  and  cities.  In  1870  the 
rate  of  illegitimacy  for  the  whole  country  was  9.4 

*  Kay's  Social  Condition  of  ike  People,  vol   ii.  p.  392. 


1 82  Influence  of  Catholicism  and 

per  cent.,  or  i  in  every  10.6  ;  whereas  in  the  rural 
districts  alone  it  was  10.5,  or  i  in  every  9.5.  In 
1871  it  was  for  the  whole  country  lo.i,  or  i  in  every 
9.8,  and  in  the  rural  districts  1 1.2,  or  i  in  every 
8.9.*  In  England  also  the  rate  of  illegitimacy  is 
much  larger  in  the  rural  districts  than  in  the 
cities,  whereas  in  Catholic  France  it  is  just  the  re- 
verse. In  the  country  districts  of  England  we  have 
the  following  rate  : 

Nottingham, 8.9 

York,  North  Riding 8.9 

Salop, g.8 

Westmoreland, 9.7 

Norfolk, 10.7 

Cumberland, 11.4 

In  France  : 

Rural  districts, 42 

La  Vendee, 2.2 

Brittany — Cote  d'Or, 1.2 

Thus  in  the  most  Catholic  rural  districts  of  France 
there  are  only  one  or  two  illegitimate  births  in 
every  hundred. 

This  is  also  true  of  Prussia,  whose  most  strongly 
Catholic  provinces  are  Westphalia  and  the  Rhine- 
land.  In  Westphalia  there  are  only  three  and  a 
half  illegitimate  births  in  every  hundred,  and  in 
the  Rhineland  only  three  and  a  third  ;  but  in  tho- 
roughly Protestant  Pomerania  and  Brandenburg 
there  are  ten  and  twelve  illegitimate  births  in  the 
hundred. f     In    Ireland,    again,  we   find   the    same 

•See  London  Statistical yournal,  J870,  1871, 
t  Historische  Politiicht  Blatter ^  1867. 


Protesta ntism  on  National  Prosperity.   1 8  3 

state  of  things.  The  rate  of  illegitimate  births  for 
all  Ireland  is  3.8  percent. ;  but  the  lowest  proportion 
is  in  Connaught,  nineteen-twentieths  of  whose  peo- 
ple are  Catholics,  and  the  greatest  is  in  Ulster,  half 
of  whose  population  is  Protestant.  "  The  sum  of 
the  whole  matter,"  says  the  Scotsman  (June,  1869), 
a  leading  organ  of  Presbyterian  Scotland,  "  is  that 
semi-Presbyterian  and  semi-Scotch  Ulster  is  fully 
three  times  more  immoral  than  wholly  popish  and 
wholly  Irish  Connaught — which  corresponds  with 
wonderful  accuracy  to  the  more  general  fact  that 
Scotland  as  a  whole  is  three  times  more  immoral 
than  Ireland  as  a  whole."  There  is  no  reason  why 
further  proof  should  be  given  of  what  is  a  manifest 
truth  ;  that  rural  populations — let  us  say,  rather, 
the  people — in  proportion  as  they  are  Catholic,  are 
also  chaste  ;  and  consequently  that  the  Catholic 
Church,  as  every  man  who  is  competent  to  judge 
must  know,  is  the  mother  of  purity,  which  is  the 
soul  of  Christian  life,  and  without  which  we  cannot 
draw  near  to  the  heart  of  the  Saviour  and  su- 
preme Lover  of  men.  Protestants,  however,  will 
be  at  no  loss  for  arguments.  Should  the  worst 
come  to  the  worst,  illegitimacy,  like  the  gallows, 
may  be  declared  an  evidence  of  civilization,  and 
then  it  needs  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 
that  it  is  more  common  in  Protestant  than  in 
Catholic  countries. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  vice  of  intemperance. 
"  I  am  sure,"  says  Hill,  "  that  I  am  within  the 
truth  when  I  state,  as  the  result  of  minute  and 
extensive  inquiry,  that,  in  four   cases  out  of   five, 


1 84  Injlucncc  of  Caiholicism  and 

when   an   offence  is  committed  intoxicating  drink 
has  been  one  of  the  causes."* 

In  an  attempt,  then,  to  form  an  estimate  of  the 
relative  morality  of  nations,  we  should  not  omit  to 
consider  the  vice  of  drunkenness,  which  is  the 
cause  of  half  the  crime  and  misery  in  the  world. 
Were  it  in  our  power  to  obtain  accurate  statistics 
on  this  subject,  as  on  that  of  illegitimacy,  the  su- 
perior sobriety  of  the  Catholic  nations  would  be 
shown  even  more  strikingly  than  their  superior 
chastity.  The  Spaniards,  it  is  universally  acknow- 
ledged, are  the  soberest  people  in  Europe,  as  the 
Swedes  are  the  most  intemperate.  Their  respec- 
tive geographical  positions  suggest  at  once  what  is 
often  assigned  as  a  sufficient  explanation  of  this 
fact — the  great  difference  of  climate.  It  was  long 
supposed  that  the  southern  nations  were  more  sen- 
sual than  the  northern,  because  it  was  thought  a 
warm  climate  must  necessarily  develop  a  greater 
violence  of  passion.  We  know  now,  however,  that 
this  is  not  the  case.  Though  climate  has  an  un- 
doubted influence  on  morality,  its  action  is  yet  so 
modified  or  controlled  among  Christian  and  civiliz- 
ed nations  that  generalizations  founded  upon  its 
supposed  effects  are  unreliable.  The  Swedes  and 
the  Scotch  are  intemperate,  the  Spaniards  and  the 
Italians  are  sober.  The  former  are  Protestant,  the 
latter  Catholic;  it  is  therefore  at  once  evident  that 
religion  has  nothing  to  do  with  this  matter,  which 
can    only  be   accounted    for   by  the  difference   of 

*  Crime :  Us  Amount,  Causes,  and  Remedies.     By  Frederick  Hill,  Earrister- 
at-law,  late  Inspector  of  Prisons.     London,  p.  65. 


Protestantism  on  A^ational  Prosperity.  185 

climate.  These  are  the  tactics  of  our  opponents ; 
those  virtues  in  which  the  Catholic  nations  excel 
must  be  attributed  to  natural  causes  ;  but  when 
some  of  them  are  found  to  lack  the  enterprise  and 
industrial  spirit  of  the  English  or  the  Americans,  it 
would  be  altogether  unreasonable  to  ascribe  this  to 
anything  else  than  their*religion. 

Scotch  statistics  show  a  greater  amount  of  intem- 
perance in  summer  than  in  winter,  which  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  a  high  temperature  does  not 
tend  to  destroy  the  passion  for  intoxicating  drink. 
But  we  do  not  propose  to  enter  into  a  discussion 
of  causes,  which,  however,  we  are  perfectly  willing 
jto  take  up  at  the  proper  time.  Our  controversy 
with  M.  de  Laveleye  turns  upon  facts. 

We  have  already  cited  the  testimony  of  Laing  to 
show  that  the  Swedes,  after  they  had  been  under 
the  exclusive  influence  of  Protestantism  for  three 
hundred  years,  were  the  most  drunken  people  in 
Europe.  Laing  was  in  Venice  on  the  occasion  of  a 
festival,  when  the  whole  population  had  turned  out 
for  pleasure,  and  he  did  not  see  a  single  case  of 
intoxication  ;  not  a  single  instance,  even  among  the 
boys,  of  rudeness  ;  and  yet  all  were  singing,  talk- 
ing, and  enjoying  themselves.  He  gives  the  follow- 
ing account  of  a  popular  merry-making  which  he 
saw  at  Florence : 

"  It  happened  that  the  9th  of  May  was  kept  here 
as  a  great  holiday  by  the  lower  class,  as  May-day 
with  us,  and  they  assembled  in  a  kind  of  park  about 
a  mile  from  the  city,  where  booths,  tents,  and  carts, 
with  wine  and  eatables  for  sale,  were  in  crowds  and 


1 86  Injlue7ice  of  Catholicism  and 

clusters,  as  at  our  village  wakes  and  race-courses. 
The  multitude  from  town  and  country  round  could 
not  be  less  than  twenty  thousand  people,  grouped 
in  small  parties,  dancing,  singing,  talking,  dining 
on  the  grass,  and  enjoying  themselves.  /  did  not 
sec  a  single  instance  of  inebriety,  ill-temper,  or  unruly, 
boisterous  conduct ;  yet  the  people  were  gay  and 
jo3^ous.    * 

Robert  Dale  Owen,  writing  from  Naples,  said : 
"  I  have  not  seen  a  man  even  partially  intoxicated 
since  I  have  been  in  the  city,  of  420,000  inhabitants, 
and  they  say  one  may  live  here  for  four  years  with- 
out seeing  one." 

Let  us  now  turn  to  Protestant  lands.  St.  Cuth- 
bert's  parish,  Edinburgh,  had  in  1861  a  population 
somewhat  exceeding  90,000  souls.  Of  these,  1,953 
were  "  drunk  and  incapable,"  3,935  were  "  drunk  and 
discharged";  making  in  all  5,888,  or  nearly. I  in  15. 

In  Salford  jail  (England),  in  1870,  the  proportion 
of  commitments  for  drunkenness  was,  as  compared 
with  commitments  for  all  offences,  37  per  cent.f 

We  have  it  upon  the  authority  of  the  English 
government  that  in  1874  no  fewer  than  285,730  Bri- 
tons were  proceeded  against  for  being  drunk  and 
disorderly,  or  drunk  and  not  disorderly  ;  and,  of 
course,  to  this  must  be  added  the  probably  greater 
number  who  escaped  arrest.  Mr.  Granville,  one  of 
the  secretaries  of  the  Church  of  England  Society  in 
the  diocese  of  Durham,  estimates  that  there  is  an 
aggregate    of  700,000   habitual  drunkards  in  Eng- 

*  Notes  of  a  Traz'eller,  pp.  4iS-ig. 

t  See  London  Statistical  Journal,  1871. 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.  187 


land.  "  It  is  a  melancholy  but  undeniable  fact," 
says  the  Alliance  Neivs,  '*  that,  notwithstanding 
vast  agencies  of  improvement,  intemperance,  crime, 
pauperism,  insanity,  and  brutality  are  more  ram- 
pant than  ever;  and,  if  we  except  pauperism,  these 
evils  have  more  than  doubled  in  the  last  forty 
years."  We  have  not  been  able  to  get  the  statis- 
tics of  drunkenness  for  Ireland,  and  can  therefore 
institute  no  comparison  between  England  and  that 
country  with  regard  to  intemperance ;  ^  but  we 
have  before  us  the  criminal  statistics  of  both  coun- 
tries for  1854,  the  population  of  England  and  Wales 
in  that  year  being  about  three  times  as  great  as 
that  of  Ireland.  The  following  table  of  convictions 
will  enable  us  to  form  an  estimate  of  the  compara- 
tive honesty  of  the  two  nations  : 


Robberj'  by  persons  armed,  England  and  Wales, 
Robbery  by  persons  armed,  Ireland,  . 
Larceny  from  the  person,  England  and  Wales, . 
Larceny  from  the  person,  Ireland, 
Larceny  by  servants, f  England  and  Wales, 
Larceny  by  servants,  Ireland,       .... 
Larceny,  simple,  England  and  Wales, 

Larceny,  simple,  Ireland 

Frauds  and  attempts  to  defraud,  England  and  Wales, 
Frauds  and  attempts  to  defraud,  Ireland,    . 
Forgery,  England  and  Wales,      .         .        .         . 


210 
2 

1-570 

389 

2,140 

44 
12,562 

3.329 

676 

62 

149 


*  In  1871,  14,501,983  gallons  of  spirits  were  distilled  in  Scotland.  What  propor- 
tion of  this  was  consumed  at  home  we  do  not  know.  For  the  same  year  the  num- 
ber of  gallons  entered  for  home  consumption  in  Ireland  was  5,212,746.  The  popu- 
lation of  Scotland  is  nearly  three  millions  and  a  half,  and  that  of  Ireland  about 
five  millions  and  a  half. 

t  England  and  Wales,  with  not  quite  three  times  the  population  of  Ireland,  had 
fifty  times  as  many  cases  of  dishonesty  among  servants,  which  clearly  accounts  for 
those  newspaper  advertisements  in  which  English  housekeepers  are  careful  to 
state  that  "  no  Irish  need  apply." 


1 88  Influence  of  Catholicistn  and 

Forgery,  Ireland, .........  4 

Uttering  and  having  in  possession  counterfeit  coin,  Eng- 
land and  Wales, 674 

Uttering  and  having  in  possession  counterfeit  coin,  Ire- 
land  4 

On  the  other  hand,  the  following  crimes  are  pro- 
portionately more  numerous  in  Ireland: 

Convictions  for  manslaughter  in  1854  : 

England  and  Wales, 96 

Ireland 50 

Burglary,  England  and  Wales, 3S4 

"          Ireland, 240 

We  cannot  think,  however,  that  these  returns 
are  trustworthy,  for  the  Statistical  Journal  of  1867 
gives  the  following  criminal  tables  for  England  in 
1865: 

Wilful  murder  cases  tried, 60 

Manslaughter 316 

Concealment  of  birth, 143 

Total; 519 

And  in  Ireland  from  1865  to  1871,  a  period  of 
six  years,  only  21  persons  were  sentenced  to  death, 
of  whom  13  were  executed,  Irish  crime,  in  its 
worst  phase,  grows  out  of  the  injustice  and  wrongs 
inflicted  upon  the  people  by  their  Protestant  rulers; 
and  though  no  condemnation  of  agrarian  outrages 
can  be  too  severe,  it  must  nevertheless  be  admitted 
that  the  landlords  and  their  agents  are  more  guilty 
than  the  victims  whom  their  cruelties  have  driven 
to  deeds  of  desperation. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  criminal  sta- 
tistics  give   us   no   information  upon  the  religious 


Protestantism  on  National  Prosperity.   1 89 

character  of  the  persons  accused  or  convicted  of 
offences  against  the  law.  Many  have  been  bap- 
tized in  infancy,  and  are  called  Catholics,  who  have 
never  been  brought  under  the  influence  of  the 
church.  In  the  absence  of  official  statistics.  Dr. 
Descuret,  who,  in  his  capacity  of  legal  physician  in 
Paris,  had  abundant  opportunity  to  obtain  data  re- 
lative to  this  subject,  made,  about  thirty  years  ago, 
a  careful  study  of  the  religious  views  and  sentiments 
of  French  criminals.  The  conclusion  which  he 
reached  was  that,  in  every  hundred  persons  accused 
of  crime,  fifty  are  indifferentists  in  religion,  forty 
are  infidels,  and  the  remaining  ten  sincere  believers. 
In  a  hundred  suicides  he  found  only  four  persons 
of  known  piety,  three  of  whom  were  women  sub- 
ject to  melancholia,  and  the  other  had  been  for 
some  time  m.entally  deranged.* 

*  La  Medecine  d€s  Passions,  y.  116. 


BJfc^rif^4; 

Y^^,^     - 

|P^ 

MLSv 

m^smsi 

PRUSSIA  AND  THE  CHURCH. 


HE  first  attempts  to  introduce  the  Chris- 
tian religion  into  Prussia  were  unsuc- 
cessful. St.  Adalbert  in  997,  and  St.  Bru- 
no in  1009,  suffered  martyrdom  whilst 
preaching  the  Gospel  there,  and  the  efforts  of  Po- 
land to  force  the  conquered  Prussians  to  receive  the 
faith  only  increased  the  bitterness  of  their  anti- 
Christian  prejudices.  Early  in  the  twelfth  century 
Bisiiop  Otto,  of  Bamberg,  made  many  conversions 
in  Pomerania;  and  finally,  in  the  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth,  the  Cistercian  monk  Christian,  with  the 
approval  and  encouragement  of  Pope  Innocent  III., 
set  to  work  to  bring  the  Prussians  into  the  church, 
and  met  with  such  success  that  in  1215  he  was 
made  bishop  of  the  country.  The  greater  part  of 
the  people,  however,  still  remained  heathens,  and 
the  progress  of  Christianity  aroused  in  them  such 
indignation  that  they  determined  to  oppose  its  far- 
ther advance  with  the  sword.  To  protect  his  flock 
Bishop  Christian  called  to  his  aid  the  knights  of  the 
Teutonic  Order ;  in  furtherance  of  his  designs,  the 
Emperor  Frederick  II.  turned  the  whole  country 
over  to  them,  and  Pope  Gregory  IX.  took  measures 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  191 

to  increase  their  number,  so  that  they  might  be 
able  to  hold  possession  of  this  field,  now  first  open- 
ed to  the  Gospel.  Pope  Innocent  IV.  also  mani- 
fested special  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  church 
in  Prussia  ;  he  urged  priests  and  monks  to  devote 
themselves  to  this  mission,  supported  and  encour- 
aged the  bishops  in  their  trials  and  difficulties,  and 
exhorted  the  convents  throughout  Germany  to 
contribute  books  for  the  education  of  the  people. 
But  circumstances  were  not  wanting  which  made 
the  position  of  the  church  in  Prussia  very  unsa- 
tisfactory. The  people  had  for  the  most  part 
been  brought  under  her  influence  by  the  power 
of  arms,  and  consequently  to  a  great  extent  re- 
mained strangers  to  her  true  spirit.  The  Teutonic 
Order,  moreover,  gave  ecclesiastical  positions  only 
to  German  priests,  so  as  to  hold  out  inducements  to 
the  people  to  learn  German  ;  though,  as  a  conse- 
quence, the  priests  were  unable  to  communicate 
with  their  flocks,  except  by  the  aid  of  interpre- 
ters. 

The  grand  master,  too,  had  almost  unlimited 
control  over  the  election  of  bishops,  which  was  the 
cause  of  many  evils,  especially  as  the  order  gradu- 
ally grew  lax  in  the  observance  of  the  rule,  and 
lost  much  of  its  Christian  character.  Unworthy 
men  were  thrust  into  ecclesiastical  offices,  the 
standard  of  morality  among  the  clergy  was  lowered, 
and  the  people  lost  respect  for  the  priesthood.  It 
is  not  surprising,  in  view  of  all  this,  that  the  reli- 
gious sectaries  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries  should   have  found  favor  in  Prussia,  and 


192  Prussia  and  the  Cluirch. 

made  converts  among  her  still  half-pagan  popula- 
tions. 

In  1466  the  Teutonic  Order  became  a  depen- 
dency of  the  crown  of  Poland.  There  was  no  hope 
of  its  freeing  itself  from  this  liumiliating  subjection 
Avithout  foreign  aid ;  and  with  a  view  to  obtain 
this,  the  knights  resolved  to  choose  their  grand  mas- 
ter from  one  or  other  of  the  most  powerful  German 
families.  First,  in  1498,  they  elected  Frederick, 
Duke  of  Saxony  ;  and  upon  his  death,  in  1510,  Al- 
brecht,  Margrave  of  Brandenburg,  was  chosen  to 
succeed  him. 

Albrecht  refused  the  oath  of  supremacy  to  Sigis- 
mund,  King  of  Poland,  who  thereupon,  in  15 19, 
declared  war  upon  him. 

To  meet  the  expenses  of  the  war,  Albrecht  had 
the  sacred  vessels  of  the  church  melted  down  and 
minted  ;  but  he  was  unable  to  stand  against  the 
arms  of  Poland,  and  therefore  sought  the  media- 
tion of  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  through  whose 
•good  offices  he  was  able  to  conclude,  in  1521,  a  four 
years'  truce.  He  now  went  into  Germany,  where 
Luther  was  already  preaching  the  Protestant  re- 
bellion, and  asked  aid  from  the  imperial  Parliament, 
which  was  holding  its  sessions  at  Nuremberg ;  and 
as  this  was  denied  him,  he  turned  with  favor  to 
the  teachers  of  the  new  doctrines.  The  Teutonic 
Order  had  become  thoroughly  corrupt,  and  Leo  X. 
urged  Albreclit  to  begin  a  reformation  ///  capite  et 
vicmbris ;  but  the  grand  master  sought  the  advice 
of  Luther,  from  whom  he  received  the  not  unwel- 
come counsel  to  throw  away  the  "  stupid,  unnatural 


Prjtssia  and  the  Church.  193 

rule  of  his  order,  take  a  wife,  and  turn  Prussia  into 
a  temporal  hereditary  principality."  Albrecht  ac- 
cordingly asked  for  preachers  of  the  new  doctrines, 
and  in  1526  announced  his  abandonment  of  the 
order  and  the  Catholic  Church  by  his  marriage 
with  the  daughter  of  the  King  of  Denmark.  Act- 
ing upon  the  Protestant  principle,  cujus  regio  ejus 
religio — the  ruler  of  the  land  makes  its  religion — he 
forced  the  Prussians  to  quit  the  church  from  which 
they  had  received  whatever  culture  and  civilization 
they  had. 

At  his  death,  in  1568,  Lutheranism  had  gained 
complete  possession  of  the  country. 

A  few  Catholics,  however,  remained,  for  whom, 
early  in  the  seventeenth  century.  King  Sigismund 
of  Poland  succeeded  in  obtaining  liberty  of  con- 
science, which  was  still  denied  to  those  of  Branden- 
burg. Frederick  William,  the  second  king  of  Prus- 
sia, and  the  first  to  form  the  design  of  placing  her 
among  the  great  powers  of  Europe  by  the  aid  of  a 
strong  military  organization,  in  giving  directions  in 
1718  for  the  education  of  his  son,  afterwards  Fre- 
derick the  Great,  insisted  that  the  boy  should  be 
inspired  with  a  horror  of  the  Catholic  Church,  ''  the 
groundlessness  and  absurdity  of  whose  teachings 
should  be  placed  before  his  eyes  and  well  impressed 
upon  his  mind." 

Frederick  William  was  a  rigid  Calvinist ;  and  if  he 
tolerated  a  few  Catholics  in  his  dominions,  it  was 
only  that  he  might  vent  his  ill-humor  or  exercise 
his  proselytizing  zeal  upon  them.  He  indeed 
granted  Father   Raymundus   Bruns  permission    to 

10 


194  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

say  Mass  in  the  garrisons  at  Berlin  and  Potsdam, 
but  only  after  he  had  been  assured  that  it  would 
tend  to  prevent  desertions  among  his  Catholic  sol- 
diers, and  that,  as  Raymundus  was  a  monk,  bound 
by  a  vow  of  poverty,  he  would  ask  no  pay  from  his 
majesty. 

In  1746  permission  was  granted  the  Catholics  to 
hold  public  worship  in  Berlin,  and  the  St.  Hedwig's 
Church  was  built  ;  in  Pomeraiiia,  how.ever,  this  pri- 
vilege was  denied  them,  except  in  the  Polish  dis- 
tricts. 

During  the  eighteenth  century  congregations 
were  formed  at  Stettin  and  Stralsund.  In  the 
principality  of  Halberstadt  the  Catholics  were  al- 
lowed to  retain  possession  of  a  church  and  several 
monasteries,  in  which  public  worship  was  permit- 
ted ;  and  in  what  had  been  the  archbishopric  of 
Magdeburg  there  were  left  to  them  one  Benedictine 
monastery  and  four  convents  of  Cistercian  nuns. 
These  latter,  however,  were  placed  under  the  su- 
pervision of  Protestant  ministers. 

Frederick  the  Great  early  in  life  fell  under  the 
influence  of  Voltaire  and  his  disciples,  from  whom 
he  learned  to  despise  all  religion,  and  especially 
the  rigid  Calvinism  of  his  father.  He  became  a 
religious  sceptic,  and,  satisfied  with  his  contempt 
for  all  forms  of  faith,  did  not  take  the  trouble  to 
persecute  any.  He  asked  of  his  subjects,  whether 
Protestant  or  Catholic,  nothing  but  money  and 
recruits ;  for  the  rest,  he  allowed  every  one  in  his 
dominions  "  to  save  his  soul  after  his  own  fashion." 
He    provided    chaplains   for   his  Catholic    soldiers, 


Pritssia  and  the  Chiirck.  195 

and  forbade  the  Calvinist  and  Lutheran  ministers 
to  interfere  with  their  religious  freedom,  for  reasons 
similar  to  those  which  had  induced  his  father  to 
permit  Raymundus  Bruns  to  say  Mass  in  the  garri- 
son at  Berlin.  He  had  certainly  no  thought  of 
showing  any  favor  to  the  church,  except  so  far  as 
it  might  promote  his  own  ambitious  projects.  His 
great  need  of  soldiers  made  him  throw  every  ob- 
stacle in  the  way  of  those  who  wished  to  enter  the 
priesthood,  and  his  fear  of  foreign  influence  caused 
him  to  forbid  priests  to  leave  the  country.  His 
mistrust  of  priests  was  so  great  that  he  gave  in- 
structions to  Count  Hoym,  his  Minister  of  State,  to 
place  them  under  a  system  of  espionage.  Catho- 
lics were  carefully  excluded  from  all  influential  and 
lucrative  positions.  They  were  taxed  more  heavily 
than  Protestants,  and  professors  in  the  universities 
were  required  to  take  an  oath  to  uphold  the  Re- 
formation. 

Notwithstanding,  it  was  in  the  reign  of  Frederick 
the  Great  that  the  Catholic  Church  in  Prussia  may 
be  said  to  have  entered  upon  a  new  life.  For  more 
than  two  hundred  years  it  had  had  no  recognized 
status  there  ;  but  through  the  conquest  of  Silesia 
and  the  division  of  Poland,  a  large  Catholic  popu- 
lation was  incorporated  into  the  kingdom  of  Prus- 
sia, and  thus  a  new  element,  which  was  formally 
recognized  in  the  constitution  promulgated  by 
Frederick's  immediate  successor,  was  introduced  into 
the  Prussian  state.  Together  with  the  toleration 
of  all  who  believed  in  God  and  were  loyal  to  the 
king,  the  law  of  the  land   placed   the  Catholic  and 


196  Prussia  ajid  tJic  ChurcJi. 

Protestant  cluircbes  on  an  equal  footing.  To  under- 
stand how  far  this  was  favorable  to  the  church  we 
must  go  back  and  consider  the  relations  of  Prussia 
to  Protestantism. 

What  is  known  as  the  Territorial  System,  by 
which  the  faith  of  the  people  is  delivered  into  the 
hands  of  the  temporal  ruler,  has  existed  in  Prussia 
from  the  time  Albrecht  of  Brandenburg  went  over 
to  the  Reformers.  Protestantism  and  absolutism 
triumphed  simultaneously  throughout  Europe,  and 
this  must  undoubtedly  be  in  a  great  measure  attri- 
buted to  the  fact  that  the  Protestants,  whether 
willingly  or  not,  yielded  up  their  faith  into  the 
keeping  of  kings  and  princes,  and  thus  practically 
abandoned  the  distinction  of  the  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral powers  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  Chris- 
tian civilization,  and  is  also  the  strongest  bulwark 
against  the  encroachments  of  governments  upon  the 
rights  of  citizens.  Duke  Albrecht  had  hardly  be- 
come a  Protestant  when  he  felt  that  it  was  his  duty 
("  coacti  sunms  "  are  his  words)  to  take  upon  him- 
self the  episcopal  office.  This  was  in  1530  ;  in  1550 
he  treated  the  urgent  request  of  the  Assembly  to 
have  the  bishopric  of  Samland  restored  as  an  attack 
upon  his  princely  prerogative. 

His  successor  diverted  to  other  uses  the  fund 
destined  for  the  maintenance  of  the  bishops,  and 
instituted  two  consistories,  to  which  he  entrusted 
the  ecclesiastical  affairs  of  the  duchy. 

During  the  seventeenth  century  Calvinism  gained 
a  firm  foothold  in  Prussia.  It  became  the  religion 
of  the  ruling  family,  and  Frederick  William,  called  ' 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  197 

the  Great  Elector,  to  whose  policy  his  successors 
have  agreed  to  ascribe  their  power,  sought  in  every- 
way to  promote  its  interests,  though  he  strenu- 
ously exercised  his  jus  cpiscopale,  his  spiritual  su- 
premacy over  both  the  Lutherans  and  the  Cal- 
vinists. 

His  son,  Frederick,  who  first  took  the  title  of 
King  of  Prussia  (1700),  continued  the  policy  of  his 
father  with  regard  to  ecclesiastical  affairs.  "  To  us 
alone,"  he  declared  to  the  Landstand,  "  belongs  the 
JUS  supremuin  cpiscopale,  the  highest  and  sovereign 
right  in  ecclesiastical  matters." 

The  Lutherans  wished  to  retain  the  exorcism  as 
a  part  of  the  ceremony  of  baptism  ;  but  Frederick 
published  an  edict  by  which  he  forbade  the  ap- 
pointment of  any  minister  who  would  refuse  to  con- 
fer the  sacrament  without  making  use  of  this  cere- 
mony. In  the  same  way  he  meddled  with  the 
Lutheran  practice  of  auricular  confession  ;  and  by 
an  order  issued  in  1703  prohibited  the  publication 
of  theological  writings  which  had  not  received  his 
imprimatur. 

His  successor,  Frederick  William,  the  father  of 
Frederick  the  Great,  looked  upon  himself  as  the 
absolute  and  irresponsible  master  of  the  subjects 
whom  God  had  given  him.  "  I  am  king  and  mas- 
ter," he  was  wont  to  say,  "  and  can  do  what  I 
please."  He  was  a  rigid  Calvinist,  and  made  his 
absolutism  felt  more  especially  in  religious  matters. 
It  seems  that  preachers  then,  as  since,  were  some- 
times in  the  habit  of  delivering  long  sermons  ;  so 
King  Frederick  William  put  a  fine  of  two  thalers 


198  Prussia  and  the  Chitrch. 

upon  any  one  who  should  preach  longer  tlian  one 
hour.  He  required  his  preachers  to  insist  in  all  ' 
their  sermons  upon  the  duty  of  obedience  and  loyal- 
ty to  the  king,  and  the  government  officials  were 
charged  to  report  any  failure  to  make  special  men- 
tion of  this  obligation.  Both  Lutherans  and  Cal- 
vinists  were  forbidden  to  touch  in  their  sermons 
upon  any  points  controverted  between  the  two  con- 
fessions. No  detail  of  religious  worship  was  insig- 
nificant enough  to  escape  his  meddlesome  tyranny. 
The  length  of  the  service,  the  altar,  the  vestments 
of  the  minister,  the  sign  of  the  cross,  the  giving  or 
singing  the  blessing,  all  fell  under  his  "  high  episco- 
pal supervision." 

This  unlovely  old  king  was  followed  by  Frederick 
the  Great,  who,  though  an  infidel  and  a  scoffer, 
held  as  firmly  as  his  father  to  his  sovereign  episco- 
pal prerogatives,  and  who,  if  less  meddlesome,  was 
not  less  arbitrary.  And  now  we  have  got  back  to 
the  constitution  which,  after  Silesia  and  a  part  of 
Poland  had  been  united  to  the  crown  of  Prussia, 
was  partially  drawn  up  under  Frederick  the  Great, 
and  completed  and  promulgated  during  the  reign 
of  his  successor  ;  and  which,  as  Ave  have  already 
said,  placed  the  three  principal  confessions  of  the 
Christian  faith  in  the  Prussian  states — the  Luthe- 
ran, the  Reformed,  and  the  Catholic — on  a  footing 
of  equality  before  the  law.  Now,  it  must  be  no- 
ticed, this  constitution  left  intact  the  absolute  au- 
thority of  the  king  over  the  Reformed  and  Luthe- 
ran churches,  and  therefore  what  might  seem  to  be 
a  great  gain  for  the  Catholic  Church  was  really  none 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  199 

at  all,  since  it  was  simply  placed  under  the  supreme 
jurisdiction  of  the  king.  There  was  no  express  re- 
cognition of  the  organic  union  of  the  church  in 
Prussia  with  the  pope,  nor  of  the  right  of  the  bi- 
shops to  govern  their  dioceses  according  to  the  ec- 
clesiastical canons,  but  rather  the  tacit  assumption 
that  the  king  was  head  of  the  Catholic  as  of  the 
Protestant  churches  in  Prussia.  The  constitution 
was  drawn  up  by  Suarez,  a  bitter  enemy  of  the 
church,  and  in  many  of  its  details  was  characterized 
by  an  anti-Catholic  spirit.  It  annulled,  for  in- 
stance, the  contract  made  by  parents  of  different 
faith  concerning  the  religious  education  of  their 
children,  and  manifested  in  many  other  ways  that 
petty  and  tyrannical  spirit  which  has  led  Prussia  to 
interfere  habitually  with  the  internal  discipline  and 
working  of  the  church. 

As  the  Catholic  population  of  Prussia  increased 
through  the  annexation  of  different  German  states, 
this  constitution,  which  gave  the  king  supreme  con- 
trol of  spiritual  matters,  was  extended  to  the  new- 
ly-acquired territories.  Thus  all  through  the  eigh- 
teenth century  the  church  in  Prussia,  though  not 
openly  persecuted,  was  fettered.  No  progress  was 
made,  abuses  could  not  be  reformed,  the  appoint- 
ment of  bishops  was  not  free,  the  training  of  the 
priesthood  was  very  imperfect  ;  and  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  this  slavery  should  have  been  produc- 
tive of  many  and  serious  evils. 

The  French  Revolution  and  the  wars  of  Napo- 
leon, which  caused  social  and  political  upheavals 
throughout  Europe,  toppled  down    thrones,   over- 


200  Prtissia  and  the  Church. 

threw  empires,  and  broke  up  and  reformed  the 
boundaries  of  nations,  mark  a  new  epoch  in  the 
history  of  Prussia,  and  indeed  of  all  Germany,  whose 
people  had  been  taught  by  these  disastrous  wars 
that  they  had  common  interests  which  could  not  be 
protected  without  national  unity,  the  want  of  which 
had  never  before  been  made  so  painfully  manifest. 

After  the  downfall  of  Napoleon,  the  ambassa- 
dors of  the  Allied  Powers  met  in  Vienna  to  settle 
the  affairs  of  all  Europe.  Nations,  provinces, 
and  cities  were  given  away  in  the  most  reckless 
manner,  without  any  thought  of  the  interests  or 
wishes  of  the  people,  to  the  kings  and  rulers  who 
could  command  the  greatest  influence  in  the  con- 
gress or  whose  displeasure  was  most  feared,  Ger- 
many demanded  the  restoration  of  Alsace  and 
Lorraine,  but  was  thwarted  in  her  designs  by 
Great  Britain  and  Russia,  who  feared  the  restora- 
tion of  her  ancient  power. 

Prussia  received  from  the  congress,  as  some  com- 
pensation for  its  sufferings  and  sacrifices  during 
the  Napoleonic  wars,  the  duchies  of  Jiilich  and 
Berg,  the  former  possessions  of  the  episcopal  sees 
of  Cologne  and  Treves,  and  several  other  territories, 
which  were  formed  into  the  Rhine  province.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  lost  a  portion  of  the  Sclavonic 
population  which  it  had  held  on  the  east  ;  so  that, 
though  it  gained  nothing  in  territory,  it  became 
more  strictly  a  German  state,  and  was  consequent- 
ly better  fitted  gradually  to  take  the  lead  in  the  ir- 
repressible movement  toward  the  unification  of  Ger- 
manv. 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  201 

In  the  Congress  of  Vienna  it  was  stipulated  that 
Catholics  and  Protestants  should  have  equal  rights 
before  the  law.  The  constitutional  law  of  Prussia 
was  extended  to  the  newly-acquired  provinces,  and 
"  all  ecclesiastical  matters,  whether  of  Roman  Ca- 
tholics or  Protestants,  together  with  the  super- 
vision and  administration  of  all  charitable  funds, 
the  confirming  of  all  persons  appointed  to  spiritual 
offices,  and  the  supervision  over  the  administration 
of  ecclesiastics  as  far  as  it  may  have  any  relation  to 
civil  affairs,  were  reserved  to  the  government." 

In  1817,  upon  the  occasion  of  the  reorganization 
of  the  government,  we  perceive  to  what  practical 
purposes  these  principles  were  to  be  applied.  The 
church  was  debased  to  a  function  of  the  state,  her 
interests  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  ministry 
for  spiritual  affairs,  and  the  education  of  even 
clerical  students  was  put  under  the  control  of  gov- 
ernment. 

It  was  in  this  same  year,  1817,  that  the  tercen- 
tennial anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Protestantism 
was  celebrated.  For  two  centuries  Protestant  faith 
in  Germany  had  been  dying  out.  Eager  and  bitter 
controversies,  the  religious  wars  and  the  plunder 
of  church  property  during  the  sixteenth  and  early 
part  of  the  seventeenth  centuries,  had  given  it  an 
unnatural  and  artificial  vigor.  It  was  a  mighty  and 
radical  revolution,  social,  political,  and  religious, 
and  therefore  gave  birth  to  fanaticism  and  intense 
partisan  zeal,  and  was  in  turn  helped  on  by  them. 

There  is  a  natural  strength  in  a  new  faith,  and 
when  it  is  tried  by  war  and  persecution  it  seems  to 

17 


202  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

rise  to  a  divine  power.  Protestantism  burst  upon 
Europe  with  irresistible  force.  Fifty  years  had  not 
passed  since  Luther  had  burned  the  bull  of  Pope 
Leo,  and  the  Catholic  Church,  beaten  almost  every- 
where in  the  North  of  Europe,  seemed  hardly  able 
to  hold  her  own  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean ;  fifty  years  later,  and  Protestantism  was  saved 
in  Germany  itself  only  by  the  arms  of  Catholic 
France.  The  peace  of  Westphalia,  in  1648,  put  an 
end  to  the  religious  wars  of  Germany,  and  from 
that  date  the  decay  of  the  Protestant  faith  was 
rapid.  Many  causes  helped  on  the  work  of  ruin  ; 
the  inherent  weakness  of  the  Protestant  system 
from  its  purely  negative  character,  the  growing  and 
bitter  dissensions  among  Protestants,  the  hopeless 
slavery  to  which  the  sects  had  been  reduced  by  the 
civil  power,  all  tended  to  undermine  faith.  In  the 
Palatinate,  within  a  period  of  sixty  years,  the  rulers 
had  forced  the  people  to  change  their  religion  four 
times.  In  Prussia,  whose  king,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  supreme  head  of  the  church,  the  ruling  house 
till  1539  was  Catholic;  then,  till  1613,  Lutheran; 
from  that  date  to  1740,  Calvinistic  ;  from  1740  to 
1786,  infidel,  the  avowed  ally  of  Voltaire  and 
D'Alembert  ;  then,  till  1817,  Calvinistic;  and  final- 
ly again  evangelical. 

During  the  long  reign  of  Frederick  the  Great 
unbelief  made  steady  progress.  Men  no  longer 
attacked  this  or  that  article  of  faith,  but  Christi- 
anity itself.  The  quickest  way,  it  was  openly  said 
by  many,  to  get  rid  of  superstition  and  priestcraft, 
would  be  to  abolish  preaching  altogether,  and  thus 


Prussia  and  the  Church,  203 

remove  the  ghost  of  religion  from  the  eyes  of  the 
people.  It  seems  strange  that  such  license  of 
thought  and  expression  should  have  been  tolerated, 
and  even  encouraged,  in  a  country  where  religion 
itself  has  never  been  free  ;  but  it  is  a  peculiarity 
of  the  Prussian  system  of  government  that  while 
it  hampers  and  fetters  the  church  and  all  religious 
organizations,  it  leaves  the  widest  liberty  of  con- 
science to  the  individual.  Its  policy  appears  to  be 
to  foster  indifference  and  infidelity,  in  order  to  use 
them  against  what  it  considers  religious  fanaticism. 
Another  circumstance  which  favored  infidelity  may 
be  found  in  the  political  thraldom  in  which  Prussia 
held  her  people.  As  men  were  forbidden  to  speak 
or  write  on  subjects  relating  to  the  government  or 
the  public  welfare,  they  took  refuge  in  theological 
and  philosophical  discussions,  which  in  Protestant 
lands  have  never  failed  to  lead  to  unbelief.  This 
same  state  of  things  tended  to  promote  the  intro- 
duction and  increase  of  secret  societies,  which,  in 
the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  sprang 
up  in  great  numbers  throughout  Germany,  bearing 
a  hundred  different  names,  but  always  having  anti- 
Christian  tendencies. 

To  stop  the  spread  of  infidelity,  Frederick  William 
II.,  the  successor  of  Frederick  the  Great,  issued,  in 
1788,  an  "edict,  embracing  the  constitution  of  re- 
ligion in  the  Prussian  states."  The  king  declared 
that  he  could  no  longer  suffer  in  his  dominions  that 
men  should  openly  seek  to  undermine  religion,  to 
make  the  Bible  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  to  raise  in  public  the  banner  of  unbelief, 


204  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

deism,  and  naturalism.  lie  would  in  future  permit 
no  farther  change  in  the  creed,  whether  of  the 
Lutheran  or  the  Reformed  Church.  This  was  the 
more  necessary  as  he  had  himself  noticed  with  sor- 
row, years  before  he  ascended  the  throne,  that  the 
Protestant  ministers  allowed  themselves  boundless 
license  with  regard  to  the  articles  of  faith,  and  in- 
deed altogether  rejected  several  essential  parts  and 
fundamental  verities  of  the  Protestant  Church  and 
the  Christian  religion.  They  blushed  not  to  revive 
the  long-since-refuted  errors  of  the  Socinians,  the 
deists,  and  the  naturalists,  and  to  scatter  them 
among  the  people  under  the  false  name  of  enlighten- 
ment {Anfkldriing),\v\v\?X  they  treated  God's  Word 
with  disdain,  and  strove  to  throw  suspicion  upon  the 
mysteries  of  revelation.  Since  this  was  intolera- 
ble, he  therefore,  as  ruler  of  the  land  and  only  law- 
giver in  his  states,  commanded  and  ordered  that  in 
future  no  clergyman,  preacher,  or  school-teacher  of 
the  Protestant  religion  should  presume,  under  pain 
of  perpetual  loss  of  office  and  of  even  severer  pun- 
ishment, to  disseminate  the  errors  already  named  ; 
for,  as  it  was  his  duty  to  preserve  intact  the  law  of 
the  land,  so  was  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  see  that 
religion  should  be  kept  free  from  taint  ;  and  he 
could  not,  consequently,  allow  its  ministers  to  sub- 
stitute their  whims  and  fancies  for  the  truths  of 
Christianity.  They  must  teach  what  had  been 
agreed  upon  in  the  symbols  of  faith  of  the  de- 
nomination to  which  they  belonged  ;  to  this  they 
were  bound  by  their  office  and  the  contract  under 
which  they  had  received   their  positions.     Never- 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  205 

theless,  out  of  his  great  love  for  freedom  of  con- 
science, the  king  was  wiUing  that  those  who  were 
known  to  disbelieve  in  the  articles  of  faith  might 
retain  their  offices,  provided  they  consented  to 
teach  their  flocks  what  they  were  themselves  un- 
able to  believe. 

In  this  royal  edict  we  have  at  once  the  fullest 
confession  of  the  general  unbelief  that  was  de- 
stroying Protestantism  in  Prussia,  and  of  the  hope- 
lessness of  any  attempt  to  arrest  its  progress.  What 
could  be  more  pitiable  than  the  condition  of  a  church 
powerless  to  control  its  ministers,  and  publicly  re- 
cognizing their  right  to  be  hypocrites?  How  could 
men  who  had  no  faith  teach  others  to  believe  ? 
Moreover,  what  could  be  more  absurd,  from  a 
Protestant  point  of  view,  than  to  seek  to  force 
the  acceptance  of  symbols  of  faith  when  the  whole 
Reformation  rested  upon  the  assumed  right  of  the 
individual  to  decide  for  himself  what  should  or 
should  not  be  believed  ?  Or  was  it  to  be  supposed 
that  men  could  invest  the  conflicting  creeds  of  the 
sects  with  a  sacredness  which  they  had  denied  to 
that  of  the  universal  church  ?  It  is  not  surprising, 
therefore,  that  the  only  effect  of  the  edict  should 
have  been  to  increase  the  energy  and  activity  of 
the  infidels  and  free-thinkers. 

Frederick  William  III.,  who  ascended  the  throne 
in  1797,  recognizing  the  futility  of  his  father's  at- 
tempt to  keep  alive  faith  in  Protestantism,  stopped 
the  enforcement  of  the  edict,  with  the  express  de- 
claration that  its  effect  had  been  to  lessen  religion 
and  increase   hypocrisy.     Abandoning  all  hope  of 


206  Prussia  and  the  CJuirch. 

controlling  the  faith  of  the  preachers,  he  turned  his 
attention  to  their  morals.  A  decree  of  the  Ober- 
consistorium  of  Berlin,  in  1798,  ordered  that  the 
conduct  of  the  ministers  should  be  closely  watched 
and  every  means  employed  to  stop  the  daily-in- 
creasing immorality  of  the  servants  of  the  church, 
which  was  having  the  most  injurious  effects  upon 
their  congregations.  Parents  had  almost  ceased 
having  their  children  baptized,  or  had  them  chris- 
tened in  the  "  name  of  Frederick  the  Great,"  or 
in  the  "  name  of  the  good  and  the  fair,"  sometimes 
with  rose-water. 

But  the  calamities  which  befell  Germany  during 
the  wars  of  the  French  Revolution  and  the  empire 
seemed  to  have  turned  the  thoughts  of  many  to 
religion.  The  frightful  humiliations  of  the  Father- 
land were  looked  upon  as  a  visitation  from  heaven 
upon  the  people  for  their  sins  and  unbelief;  and 
therefore,  when  the  tercentennial  anniversary  of 
Protestantism  came  around  (in  1817),  they  were 
prepared  to  enter  upon  its  celebration  with  earnest 
enthusiasm.  The  celebration  took  the  form  of  an 
anti-Catholic  demonstration.  For  many  years  con- 
troversy between  Protestants  and  Catholics  had 
ceased  ;  but  now  a  wholly  unprovoked  but  bitter 
and  grossly  insulting  attack  was  made  upon  the 
church  from  all  the  Protestant  pulpits  of  Germany 
and  in  numberless  writings.  The  result  of  this 
wanton  aggression  was  a  reawakening  of  Catholic 
faith  and  life  ;  whilst  the  attempt  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  Protestant  enthusiasm  to  bring  about 
a    union   between    the    Lutheran    and    Reformed 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  207 

churches  in  Prussia,  ended  in  causing  fresh  dissen- 
sions and  divisions.  The  sect  of  the  Old  Luther- 
ans was  formed,  which,  in  spite  of  persecution, 
finally  succeeded  in  obtaining  toleration,  though 
not  till  many  of  its  adherents  had  been  driven 
across  the  ocean  into  exile. 

As  the  Congress  of  Vienna  had  decided  that 
Catholics  and  Protestants  should  be  placed  upon  a 
footing  of  equality,  and  as  Prussia  had  received  a 
large  portion  of  the  secularized  lands  of  the  church, 
with  the  stipulation  that  she  should  provide  for 
the  maintenance  of  Catholic  worship,  the  govern- 
ment, in  1816,  sent  Niebuhr,  the  historian,  to 
Rome,  to  treat  with  the  pope  concerning  the  reor- 
ganization of  the  Catholic  religion  in  the  Prussian 
states.  Finall}'-,  in  1821,  an  agreement  was  signed 
which  received  the  sanction  of  the  king,  and  was 
published  as  a  fundamental  law  of  the  state. 

In  this  Concordat  with  the  Holy  See  there  is  at 
least  a  tacit  recognition  of  the  true  nature  of  the 
church,  of  her  organic  unity — a  beginning  of  re- 
spect for  her  freedom,  and  a  seeming  promise  of  a 
better  future.  In  point  of  fact,  however,  in  spite 
of  Niebuhr's  assurance  to  the  Holy  Father  that 
he  might  rely  upon  the  honest  intentions  of  the 
government,  Prussia  began  almost  at  once  to  med- 
dle with  the  rights  of  Catholics.  A  silent  and  slow 
persecution  was  inaugurated,  by  which  it  was 
hoped  their  patience  would  be  exhausted  and  their 
strength  wasted.  And  now  we  shall  examine  more 
closely  the  artful  and  heartless  policy  by  which, 
with  but  slight  variations,  for  more  than   two   cen- 


2o8  Prussia  and  the  CJnircJi. 

turies  Prussia  has  sought  to  undermine  the  Catho- 
'lic  religion.  In  1827  the  Protestants  of  all  com- 
munions in  Prussia  amounted  to  6,370,380,  and  the 
Catholics  to  4,023,513.  These  populations  are,  to 
only  a  very  limited  extent,  intermingled  ;  certain 
provinces  being  almost  entirely  Catholic,  and  others 
nearly  wholly  Protestant.  By  law  the  same  rights 
are  granted  to  both  Catholics  and  Protestants ; 
and  both,  therefore,  should  receive  like  treatment 
at  the  hands  of  the  government. 

This  is  the  theory;  what  are  the  facts?  We  will 
take  the  religious  policy  of  Prussia  from  the  reor- 
ganization of  the  church  after  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  down  to  the  revolution  of  1848,  and  we 
will  begin  with  the  subject  of  education.  For  the 
six  millions  of  Protestants  there  were  four  exclu- 
sively Protestant  universities,  at  Berlin,  Halle, 
Konigsberg,  and  Greifswalde  ;  for  the  four  millions 
of  Catholics  there  were  but  two  Jialf  universities, 
at  Bonn  and  Breslau,  in  each  cf  which  there  was 
a  double  faculty,  the  one  Protestant,  the  other 
Catholic  ;  though  the  professors  in  all  the  facul- 
ties, except  that  of  theology,  were  for  the  most 
part  Protestants.  Thus,  out  of  six  universities,  to 
the  Catholics  was  left  only  a  little  corner  in  two, 
though  they  were  forced  to  bear  nearly  one-half  of 
the  public  burdens  by  which  all  six  were  support- 
ed. But  this  is  not  the  worst.  The  bishops  had 
no  voice  in  the  nomination  of  the  professors,  not 
even  those  of  theology.  They  were  simply  asked 
whether  they  had  any  objections  to  make,  on  proof . 
The  candidate  might  be   a  stran'ger,  he  might  be 


Prussia  and  the  Chtirch.  209 

wholly  unfitted  to  teach  theology,  he  might  be 
free  from  open  immorality  or  heresy  ;  and  there- 
fore, because  the  bishops  could  prove  nothing 
against  him,  he  was  appointed  to  instruct  the  as- 
pirants to  the  priesthood. 

At  Breslau  a  foreign  professor  Avas  installed, 
who  began  to  teach  the  most  scandalous  and  here- 
tical doctrines.  Complaints  were  useless.  During 
many  years  his  pupils  drank  in  the  poison,  and  at 
length,  after  he  had  done  his  work  of  destruction, 
he  was,  as  in  mockery,  removed.  Nor  is  this  an 
isolated  instance  of  the  ruin  to  Catholic  faith 
wrought  by  this  system.  The  bishops  had  hardly 
any  influence  over  the  education  of  their  clergy, 
who,  young  and  ignorant  of  the  world,  were  thrown 
almost  without  restraint  into  the  pagan  corruptions 
of  a  German  university,  in  order  to  acquire  a  know- 
ledge of  theology.  At  Cologne  a  Catholic  college 
was  made  over  to  the  Protestants ;  at  Erfurt  and 
Diisseldorf  Catholic  gymnasia  were  turned  into 
mixed  establishments  with  all  the  professors,  save 
one,  Protestants. 

Elementary  education  was  under  the  control  of 
provincial  boards  consisting  of  a  Protestant  presi- 
dent and  three  councillors,  one  of  whom  might  be  a 
Catholic  in  Catholic  districts.  In  the  Catholic  pro- 
vinces of  the  Rhine  and  Westphalia  the  place  of 
Catholic  councillor  was  left  vacant  for  several 
years  till  the  schools  were  all  reorganized.  Indeed, 
the  real  superintendent  of  Catholic  elementary  edu- 
cation was  generally  a  Protestant  minister. 

There  was  a  government  censorship  of  books  of 


2IO  Prussia  and  the  CJitu'ch. 

religious  instruction,  the  headquarters  of  which  were 
in  Berlin,  but  its  agents  were  scattered  throughout 
all  the  provinces.  All  who  were  employed  in  this 
department,  to  which  even  the  pastorals  of  the  bish- 
ops had  to  be  submitted  before  being  read  to  their 
flocks,  were  Protestants.  The  widest  liberty  was 
given  to  Protestants  to  attack  the  church  ;  but 
when  the  Catholics  sought  to  defend  themselves, 
their  writings  were  suppressed.  Professor  Freuden- 
feld  was  obliged  to  quit  Bonn  because  he  had  spo- 
ken of  Luther  without  becoming  respect. 

Permission  to  start  religious  journals  was  denied 
to  Catholics,  but  granted  to  Protestants;  and  in 
the  pulpit  the  priests  were  put  under  strict  re- 
straint, while  the  preachers  were  given  full  liberty 
of  speech.  Whenever  a  community  of  Protestants 
was  found  in  a  Catholic  district,  a  church,  a  cler- 
gyman, and  a  school  were  immediately  provided 
for  them ;  indeed,  richer  provision  for  the  Protes- 
tant worship  was  made  in  the  Catholic  provinces 
than  elsewhere ;  but  when  a  congregation  of  Ca- 
tholics grew  up  amongst  Protestants,  the  govern- 
ment almost  invariably  rejected  their  application 
for  permission  to  have  a  place  of  worship.  At 
various  times  and  places  churches  and  schools 
were  taken  from  Catholics  and  turned  over  to 
Protestants;  and  though  Prussia  had  received  an 
enormous  amount  of  the  confiscated  property  of 
the  church,  she  did  not  provide  for  the  support  of 
the  priests  as  for  that  of  the  ministers. 

At  court  there  was  not  a  single  Catholic  who 
held  office  ;  the  heads  of  all  the  departments  of 


Prussia  and  the  Chw'cJi.  2 1 1 

government  were  Protestants  ;  the  Post-Office  de- 
partment, down  to  the  local  postmasters,  was  ex- 
clusively Protestant ;  all  ambassadors  and  other 
representatives  of  the  government,  though  sent  to 
Catholic  courts,  were  Protestants. 

In  Prussia  the  state  is  divided  into  provinces,  and 
at  the  head  of  each  province  is  a  high-president 
(Ober-Prasident).  This  official,  to  whom  the  reli- 
gious interests  of  the  Catholics  were  committed, 
was  always  a  Protestant.  The  provinces  are  di- 
vided into  districts,  and  at  the  head  of  each  dis- 
trict was  a  Protestant  president,  and  almost  all  the 
inferior  officers,  even  in  Catholic  provinces,  were 
Protestants. 

Again,  in  the  courts  of  justice  and  in  the  army 
all  the  principal  positions  were  given  to  Protestants. 
In  the  two  corps  d'armhs  of  Prussia  and  Silesia, 
one-half  was  Catholic  ;  in  the  army  division  of  Po- 
sen,  two-thirds  ;  in  that  of  Westphalia  and  Cleves, 
three-fifths  ;  and,  finally,  in  that  of  the  Rhine,  sev- 
en-eighths ;  yet  there  was  not  one  Catholic  field- 
officer,  not  a  general  or  major.  In  1832  a  royal  or- 
der was  issued  to  provide  for  the  religious  wants  of 
the  army,  and  every  care  was  taken  for  the  spirit- 
ual needs  of  the  Protestant  soldiers ;  but  not  even 
one  Catholic  chaplain  was  appointed.  All  persons 
in  active  service,  from  superior  officers  down  to 
private  soldiers,  were  declared  to  be  members  of 
the  military  parish,  and  were  placed  under  the  au- 
thority of  the  Protestant  chaplains.  If  a  Catholic 
soldier  wished  to  get  married  or  to  have  his  child 
baptized  by  a  priest,  he  had  first  to  obtain  the  per- 


212  Prttssia  a7id  the  CJnirch 

mission  of  his  Protestant  curate.  What  was  still 
more  intolerable,  the  law  regulating  military  wor- 
ship was  so  contrived  as  to  force  the  Catholic 
soldiers  to  be  present  at  Protestant  service. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  relations  of  the  church 
in  Prussia  with  the  Holy  See.  All  direct  commu- 
nications between  the  Catholics  and  the  pope 
were  expressly  forbidden.  Whenever,  the  bishops 
■wished  to  consult  the  Holy  Father  concerning  the 
administration  of  their  dioceses,  their  inquiries  had 
to  pass  through  the  hands  of  the  Protestant  min- 
istry, to  be  forwarded  or  not  at  its  discretion,  and 
the  answer  of  the  pope  had  to  be  conveyed  through 
the  same-  channel.  It  was  not  safe  to  write  ; 
for  the  government  had  no  respect  for  the  mails, 
and  letters  were  habitually  opened  by  order  of  Von 
Nagler,  the  postmaster-general,  who  boasted  that 
he  had  never  had  any  idiotic  scruples  about  such 
matters ;  that  Prince  Constantine  was  his  model, 
who  had  once  entertained  him  with  narrating  how 
he  had  managed  to  get  the  choicest  selection  of  in- 
tercepted letters  in  existence ;  he  had  had  them 
bound  in  morocco,  and  they  formed  thirty-three 
volumes  of  the  most  interesting  reading  in  his  pri- 
vate library.  Thus  the  church  was  ruled  by  a  sys- 
tem of  espionage  and  bureaucracy  which  hesitated 
not  to  violate  all  the  sanctities  of  life  to  accomplish 
its  ends.  The  bishops  were  reduced  to  a  state  of 
abject  dependence  ;  not  being  allowed  to  publish 
any  new  regulation  or  to  make  any  appointment 
without  the  permission  and  approval  of  the  Pro- 
testant high-pres'ident,  from  whom  they  constant- 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  213 

ly  received  the  most  annoying  and  vexatious  de- 
spatches. 

The  election  of  bishops  was  reduced  to  a  mere 
form.  When  a  see  became  vacant,  the  royal  com- 
missary visited  the  chapter  and  announced  the  per- 
son whom  the  king  had  selected  to  fill  the  office, 
declaring  at  the  same  time  that  no  other  would  re- 
ceive his  approval. 

The  minutest  details  of  Catholic  worship  were 
placed  under  the  supervision  and  control  of  Protes- 
tant laymen,  who  had  to  decide  how  much  wine 
and  how  many  hosts  might  be  used  during  the 
year  in  tlie  different  churches. 

We  come  now  to  a  matter,  vexed  and  often  dis- 
cussed, in  which  the  trials  of  the  church  in  Prussia, 
prior  to  the  recent  persecutions,  finally  culminated  ; 
we  allude  to  the  subject  of  marriages  between  Ca- 
tholics and  Protestants. 

When,  in  1803,  Prussia  got  possession  of  the* 
greater  part  of  her  Catholic  provinces,  the  following 
order  was  at  once  issued  :  "  His  majesty  enacts  that 
children  born  in  wedlock  shall  all  be  educated  in 
the  religion  of  the  father,  and  that,  in  opposition 
to  this  law,  neither  party  shall  bind  the  other." 
Apart  from  the  odious  meddling  of  the  state  with 
the  rights  of  individuals  and  the  agreeaients  of 
parties  so  closely  and  sacredly  related  as  man  and 
wife,  there  was  in  this  enactment  a  special  injustice 
to  Catholics,  from  the  fact  that  nearly  all  the  mixed 
marriages  in  Prussia  were  contracted  by  Protestant 
government  officials  and  Catholic  women  of  the 
provinces   to   which    these   agents  "had   been   sent. 


214  Prussia  and  the  CImrch, 

As  these  men  held  lucrative  offices,  they  found  no 
difficulty  in  making  matrimonial  alliances ;  and  as 
the  children  had  to  be  brought  up  in  the  religion 
of  the  father,  the  government  was  by  this  means 
gradually  establishing  Protestant  congregations 
throughout  its  Catholic  provinces.  In  1825  this 
law  was  extended  to  the  Rhenish  province,  and  in 
1831  a  document  was  brought  to  light  which  ex- 
plained the  object  of  the  extension,  which  was  that 
it  might  prove  an  effectual  measure  against  the 
proselyting   system   of  Catholics. 

The  condition  of  the  church  was  indeed  deplora- 
ble. With  the  name  of  being  free,  she  was,  in 
truth,  enslaved ;  and  while  the  state  professed  to 
respect  her  rights,  it  was  using  all  the  power  of  the 
most  thoroughly  organized  and  most  heartless  sys- 
tem of  bureaucracy  and  espionage  to  weaken  and 
fetter  her  action,  and  even  to  •  destroy  her  life. 
•This  was  the  state  of  affairs  when,  in  the  end  of 
1835,  Von  Droste  Vischering,  one  of  the  greatest 
and  noblest  men  of  this  century,  worthy  to  be 
named  with  Athanasius  and  with  Ambrose,  was 
made  archbishop  of  Cologne. 

The  Catholic  people  of  Prussia  had  long  since 
lost  all  faith  in  the  good  intentions  of  the  govern- 
ment, of  whose  acts  and  aims  they  had  full  know- 
ledge; and  it  was  in  order  to  restore  confidence  that 
a  man  so  trusted  and  loved  by  them  as  Von  Droste 
Vischering  was  promoted  to  the  see  of  Cologne. 
The  doctrines  of  Hermes,  professor  of  theology'  in 
the  University  of  Bonn,  had  just  been  condemned 
at   Rome,  but   the  government   ignored   the  papal 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  215 

brief,  and  continued  to  give  its  support  to  the  Her- 
mesians;  the  archbishop,  nevertheless,  denounced 
their  writings,  and  especially  their  organ,  the  Bon- 
ner Theologische  Zeitschrift,  forbade  his  students  to 
attend  their  lectures  at  the  university,  and  finally 
withdrew  his  approbation  altogether  from  the  Her- 
mesian  professors,  refusing  to  ordain  students  unless 
they  formally  renounced  the  proscribed  doctrines. 

By  a  ministerial  order  issued  in  1825,  priests  were 
forbidden,  under  pain  of  deposition  from  office,  to 
exact  in  mixed  marriages  any  promise  concerning 
the  education  of  the  offspring.  A  like  penalty  was 
threatened  for  refusing  to  marry  parties  who  were 
unwilling  to  make  such  promises,  or  for  withhold- 
ing absolution  from  those  who  were  bringing  up 
their  children  in  the  Protestant  religion.  To  avert 
as  far  as  possible  any  conflict  between  the  church 
and  the  government,  Pius  VIII. ,  in  1830,  addressed 
a  brief  to  the  bishops  of  Cologne,  Treves,  Miinster, 
and  Paderborn,  in  which  he  made  every  allowable 
concession  to  the  authority  of  the  state  in  the  mat- 
ter of  mixed  marriages.  The  court  of  Berlin  with- 
held the  papal  brief,  and,  taking  advantage  of  the 
yielding  disposition  of  Archbishop  Spiegel  of  Co- 
logne, entered,  without  the  knowledge  of  the  Holy 
See,  into  a  secret  agreement  with  him,  in  which 
still  farther  concessions  were  made,  and  in  violation 
of  Catholic  principle.  Von  Droste  Vischering  took 
as  his  guide  the  papal  brief,  and  paid  no  attention 
to  such  provisions  of  the  secret  agreement  as  con- 
flicted with  the  instructions  of  the  Holy  Father. 

The  government   took  alarm,  and   offered  to   let 


2i6  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

fall  the  Hermesians,  if  the  archbishop  would  yield 
in  the  affair  of  mixed  marriages  ;  and  as  this  ex- 
pedient failed,  measures  of  violence  were  threaten- 
ed, which  were  soon  carried  into  effect ;  for  on  the 
evening  of  the  20th  of  November,  1837,  the  arch- 
bishop was  secretly  arrested  and  carried  off  to  the 
fortress  of  Minden,  where  he  was  placed  in  close 
confinement,  all  communication  with  him  being  cut 
off.  The  next  morning  the  government  issued  a 
"Publicandum,"  in  which  it  entered  its  accusations 
against  the  archbishop,  in  order  to  justify  its  arbi- 
trary act  and  to  appease  the  anger  of  the  people. 
Notwithstanding,  a  cry  of  indignation  and  grief  was 
heard  in  all  the  Catholic  provinces  of  Prussia,  which 
was  re-echoed  throughout  Germany  and  extended 
to  all  Europe.  Lukewarm  Catholics  grew  fervent, 
and  the  very  Hermesians  gathered  with  their  sym-. 
pathies  to  uphold  the  cause  of  the  Church. 

The  Archbishop  of  Posen  and  the  Bishops  of 
Paderborn  and  Munster  announced  their  withdrawal 
from  the  secret  convention,  which  the  Bishop  of 
Treves  had  already  done  upon  his  death-bed  ;  and 
henceforward  the  priests  throughout  the  kingdom 
held  firm  to  the  ecclesiastical  law  on  mixed  mar- 
riages, so  that  in  1838  Frederick  William  III.  was 
forced  to  make  a  declaration  recognizing  the  rights 
for  which  they  contended.  But  the  Archbishop  of 
Cologne  was  still  a  prisoner  in  the  fortress  of  Min-' 
den.  Early,  however,  in  1839,  ^^^^  health  began  to 
fail ;  and  as  the  government  feared  lest  his  death 
in  prison  might  produce  unfavorable  comment,  he 
received  permission  to  withdraw  to  MUnster.     The 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  2 1 7 

next  year  the  king  died,  and  his  successor,  Fred- 
erick William  IV.,  showed  himself  ready  to  settle 
the  dispute  amicably,  and  in  other  ways  to  do  jus- 
tice to  the  Catholics.  A  great  victory  had  been 
gained — the  secret  convention  was  destroyed — a 
certain  liberty  of  communication  with  the  pope  was 
granted  to  the  bishops.  The  election  of  bishops 
was  made  comparatively  free,  the  control  of  the 
schools  of  theology  was  restored  to  them,  the  Her- 
mesians  either  submitted  or  were  removed,  and  the 
Catholics  of  Germany  awoke  from  a  deathlike  sleep 
to  a  new  and  vigorous  life. 

An  evidence  of  the  revival  of  faith  was  given  in 
the  fall  of  1844,  when  a  million  and  a  half  of  Ger- 
man Catholics  went  in  pilgrimage,  with  song  and 
prayer,  to  Treves. 

Nevertheless,  many  grievances  remained  unre- 
dressed. The  censorship  of  the  press  was  still  used 
against  the  church  ;  and  when  the  Catholics  asked 
permission  to  publish  journals  in  which  they  could 
defend  themselves  and  their  religious  interests,  they 
were  told  that  such  publications  were  not  needed  ; 
but  when  Ronge,  the  suspended  priest,  sought  to 
found  his  sect  of  "  German  Catholics,"  he  receiv- 
ed every  encouragement  from  the  government,  and 
the  earnest  support  of  the  officials  and  nearly  the 
entire  press  of  Prussia  ;  though,  at  this  very  time, 
every  effort  was  being  made  to  crush  the  "  Old  Lu- 
therans." 

The  government  continued  to  find  pretexts  for 
meddhng  with  the  affairs  of  the  bishops,  and  the 
newspapers  attacked  the  church  in  the  most  insult- 
is 


2 1 8  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

ing  "manner,  going  so  far  as  to  demand  that  reli- 
gious exercises  for  priests  should  be  placed  under 
police  supervision.  We  have  now  reached  a  mem- 
orable epoch  in  the  Ifistory  of  the  Catholic  Church 
in  Prussia — the  revolution  of  1848,  which  convulsed 
Germany  to  its  centre,  spread  dismay  among  all 
classes,  and  filled  its  cities  with  riot  and  bloodshed. 
When  order  was  re  established,  the  liberties  of  the 
church  were  recognized  more  fully  than  they  had 
been  for  three  centuries. 


PRUSSIA  AND  THE  CHURCH. 


II. 


N  February,  1848,  Louis  Philippe  was 
driven  from  his  throne  by  the  people  of 
Paris,  and  the  Republic  was  proclaimed. 
This  revolution  spread  rapidly  over  the 
whole  of  Europe.  The  shock  was  most  violent  in 
Germany,  where^verything  was  in  readiness  for  a 
general  outburst.  Most  of  the  governments  were 
compelled  to  yield  to  the  popular  will  and  to  make 
important  concessions.  New  cabinets  were  formed 
in  Wurtemberg,  Darmstadt,  Nassau,  and  Hesse. 
Lewis  of  Bavaria  was  forced  to  abdicate.  Hanover 
and  Saxony  held  out  until  Berlin  and  Vienna  were 
invaded  by  the  revolutionary  party,  when  they  too 
succumbed.  On  the  13th  of  March  the  Vienna 
mob  overthrew  the  Austrian  ministry,  and  Metter- 
nich  fled  to  England.  Italy  and  Hungary  revolted. 
Berlin  was  held  all  summer  by  an  ignorant  revolu- 
^tionary  faction.  In  September  fierce  and  bloody 
riots  broke  out  in  Frankfort. 

Popular  meetings,  secret  societies,  revolutionary 
club*s,  violent  declamations,  and  inflammatory  ap- 
peals through  the  press  kept  all  Germany  in  a  state 
of  agitation.     Occasional  outbreaks  among  the  pea- 


2  20  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

santry,  followed  by  pillage  and  incendiarism,  in- 
creased the  general  confusion. 

It  was  during  this  time  of  wild  excitement  that 
the  elections  for  the  Imperial  Parliament  were  held. 
To  this  assembly  many  avowed  atheists,  pantheists, 
communists,  and  Jacobins  were  chosen — men  who 
fully  agreed  with  Hecker  when  he  declared  that 
"  there  were  six  plagues  in  Germany :  the  princes, 
the  nobles,  the  bureaucrats,  the  capitalists,  the 
parsons,  and  the  soldiers."  The  parties  in  the  Par- 
liament took  their  names  from  their  positions  in  the 
assembly  hall,  and  were  called  the  extreme  left,  the 
left,  the  left  centre,  the  right  centre,  the  right,  and 
the  extreme  right.  The  first  three  were  composed 
of  red  republicans,  Jacobins,  and^iberals.  To  the 
right  centre  belonged  the  constitutional  liberals  ; 
and  on  the  right  and  right  centre  sat  the  Catholic 
members,  the  predecessors  of  the  party  of  the  Cen- 
triun  of  the  present  day.  The  extreme  right  was 
occupied  by  functionaries  and  bureaucrats,  chiefly 
from  Prussia.  The  Parliament  of  Frankfort,  in  the 
Grundrcchte,  or  Fiindameiital  Rights,  w^hich  it  pro- 
claimed, decreed  universal  suffrage,  abolished  all 
the  political  privileges  of  the  aristocracy,  the  here- 
ditary chambers  in  all  the  states  of  Germany,  set 
aside  the  existing  family  entails,  and,  though  it 
nominally  retained  the  imperial  power,  degraded 
the  emperor  to  a  republican  president  by  giving 
him  merely  a  suspensive  veto. 

While  this  Parliament  was  sitting  the  Catholic 
bishops  of  Germany  assembled  in  council  at  Wilrz- 
burg,  and,  at  the  conclusion  of  their  deliberations. 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  221 

drew  up  a  Memorial  as  firm  in  tone  as  it  was  clear 
and  precise  in  expression,  in  which  they  set  forth 
the  claims  of  the  church. 

"  To  bring  about,"  they  said,  "  a  separation  from 
the  state — that  is  to  say,  from  public  order,  which 
necessarily  reposes  on  a  moral  and  religious  foun- 
dation— is  not  according  to  the  will  of  the  church. 
If  the  state  will  perforce  separate  from  the  church, 
so  will  the  church,  without  approving,  tolerate  what 
she  cannot  avoid  ;  but,  unless  compelled  by  the 
duty  of  self-preservation,  she  will  not  break  the 
bonds  of  union  made  fast  by  mutual  understanding, 

**  The  church,  entrusted  with  the  solemn  and  holy 
mission,  'As  my  Father  hath  sent  me,  so  send  I 
ye,'  requires  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  mission, 
whatever  the  form  of  government  of  the  state  may 
be,  the  fullest  freedom  and  independence.  Her 
holy  popes,  prelates,  and  confessors  have  in  all  ages 
willingly  and  courageously  given  up  their  life  and 
blood  for  the  preservation  of  this  inalienable  free- 
dom." 

In  virtue  of  these  principles  the  bishops,  in  their 
Memorial,  claimed  the  right  of  directing,  without 
any  interference  on  the  part  of  the  state,  theologi- 
cal seminaries,  and  of  founding  schools,  colleges, 
and  all  kinds  of  educational  establishments ;  of 
exerting  canonical  control,  unfettered  by  state 
meddling,  over  the  conduct  of  their  clergy,  as  well 
as  that  of  introducing  into  their  dioceses  religious 
orders,  congregations,  and  pious  confraternities,  for 
which  they  demanded  the  same  privileges  which 
the  new  political  constitution  had  granted  to  secu- 


22  2  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

lar  associations.  Finally,  they  asserted  their  right 
to  free  and  untrammelled  communication  with  the 
Holy  See  ;  and,  as  included  in  this,  that  of  receiv- 
ing and  publishing  all  papal  bulls,  briefs,  and  other 
documents  without  the  Royal  Placet,  which  they 
declared  to  be  repugnant  to  the  honor  and  dignity 
of  the  ministers  of  religion. 

The  Frankfort  Parliament  decreed  the  total  sepa- 
ration of  church  and  state,  and  was  therefore  com- 
pelled to  guarantee  the  freedom  of  all  religions. 
This  separation  was  sanctioned  by  t4ie  Catholic 
members  of  the  Assembly,  who  looked  upon  it  as 
less  dangerous  to  the  cause  of  religion  and  morality 
than  ecclesiastical  Josephism.  In  the  present  con- 
flict between  the  church  and  the  German  Empire 
the  Catholic  party  has  again  demanded,  and  in  vain, 
the  separation  of  church  and  state.  In  rejecting 
their  urgent  request  Dr.  Falk  declared  that  the 
leading  minds  in  England  and  America  are  already 
beginning  to  regret  that  their  governments  have  so 
little  control  over  the  ecclesiastical  organizations 
within  their  limits. 

Whilst  the  representatives  of  the  German  people 
at  Frankfort  were  abolishing  the  privileges  of  the 
nobles,  decreeing  the  separation  of  church  and 
state,  and  forgetting  the  standing  armies,  the  gov- 
ernments were  quietly  gathering  their  forces.  Mar- 
shal Radetzky  put  down  the  Italia'n  rebellion.  Prince 
Windischgratz  quelled  the  democracy  of  Vienna, 
and  General  Wrangel  took  possession  of  Berlin, 
without  a  battle.  Russia,  at  the  request  of  Aus- 
tria, sent    an    army   into   Hungary  to   destroy  the 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  223 

rebellion  in  that  country,  and  the  disturbances  in 
Bavaria  and  in  the  Palatinate  were  suppressed  by- 
Prussian  troops  under  the  present  Emperor  of 
Germany.  The  representatives  of  the  larger  states 
withdrew  from  the  Frankfort  Parliament,  which 
dwindled,  and  finally,  amidst  universal  contempt 
and  neglect,  came  to  an  end  at  Stuttgart,  June  18, 

1849- 

But  the  liberties  of  the  church  were  not  lost.  In 
Prussia,  as  we  have  seen,  a  better  state  of  things 
had  begun  with  the  imprisonment  of  the  heroic 
Archbishop  of  Cologne  in  1837.  In  the  face  of  the 
menacing  attitude  of  the  German  democrats  and 
republicans,  Frederick  William  IV.  confirmed  the 
liberties  of  the  Catholic  Church  by  the  letters- 
patent  of  1847. 

The  constitutions  of  December  5,  1848,  and  Janu- 
ary 31,  1850,  were  drawn  up  in  the  lurid  light  of 
the  revolution,  which  had  beaten  fiercest  upon  the 
house  of  HohenzoUern.  The  king  had  capitulated 
to  the  insurgents,  withdrawn  his  soldiers  from  the 
capital,  and  abandoned  Berlin,  and  with  it  the 
whole  state,  for  nine  months  to  the  tender  mercies 
of  the  mob.  He  was  forced  to  witness  the  most 
revolting  spectacles.  The  dead  bodies  of  the 
rioters  were  borne  in  procession  under  the  windows 
of  his  palace,  while  the  rabble  shouted  to  him : 
**  Fritz,  off  with  your  hat." 

It  is  not  surprising,  in  view  of*  this  experience, 
that  we  should  find  in  the  constitution  of  1850 
(articles  15  to  18  inclusive)  a  very  satisfactory  re- 
cognition of  the  rights  of  the  church.     Why  these 


2  24  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

paragraphs  granting  the  church  freedom  to  regulate 
and  administer  its  own  affairs ;  to  keep  possession 
of  its  own  revenues,  endowments,  and  estabHsh- 
ments,  whether  devoted  to  worship,  education,  or 
beneficence  ;  and  freely  to  communicate  with  the 
Pope,  were  inserted  in  the  constitution,  we  know 
from  Prince  Bismarck  himself.  In  his  speech  in 
the  Prussian  Upper  House,  March  lo,  1873,  he 
affirmed  that  "  they  were  introduced  at  a  time 
when  the  state  needed,  or  thought  it  needed,  help, 
and  believed  that  it  would  find  this  help  by  leaning 
on  the  Catholic  Church.  It  was  probably  led  to 
this  belief  by  the  fact  that  in  the  National  Assem- 
bly of  1848  all  the  electoral  districts  with  a  pre- 
ponderant Catholic  population  returned — I  will  not 
say  royalist  representatives,  but  certainly  men  who 
were  the  friends  of  order,  which  was  not  the  case 
in  the  Protestant  districts." 

The  provisions  of  the  constitution  of  1850  with 
regard  to  the  church  were  honorably  and  faithfully 
carried  out  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  present 
conflict.  Never  since  the  Reformation  had  the 
church  in  Prussia  been  so  free,  never  had  she  made 
such  rapid  progress,  whether  in  completing  her  in- 
ternal organization  or  in  extending  her  influence. 
The  Prussian  liberals  and  atheists,  who  had  fully 
persuaded  themselves  that  without  the  wealth  and 
aid  of  the  state  the  Catholic  religion  would  have  no 
force,  were  amazed.  The  influence  of  the  priests 
over  the  people  grew  in  proportion  as  they  were 
educated  more  thoroughly  in  the  spirit  and  disci- 
pline of  the  church    under  the    immediate    super- 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  225 

vision  of  the  bishops,  unfettered  by  state  interfer- 
ence ;  the  number  of  convents,  both  of  men  and 
women,  rapidly  increased  ;  associations  of  all  kinds, 
scientific,  benevolent,  and  religious,  spread  over 
the  land  ;  religious  journals  and  reviews  were 
founded  in  which  Catholic  interests  were  ably  ad- 
vocated and  defended  ;.  and  all  the  forces  of  the 
church  were  unified  and  guided  by  the  harmonious 
action  of  a  most  enlightened  and  zealous  episco- 
pate. 

This  was  the  more  astonishing  as  the  Evangeli- 
cal Church,  whose  liberties  had  also  been  guaran- 
teed by  the  constitution  of  i8$o,  had  shown  itself 
unable  to  profit  by  the  greater  freedom  of  action 
which  it  had  received.  In  fact,  the  Evangelical 
Church  was  lifeless,  and  it  needed  only  this  test  to 
prove  its  want  of  vitality.  It  was  a  state  creation, 
and  in  an  age  when  the  world  had  ceased  to  recog- 
nize the  divine  right  of  kings  to  create  religions. 
It  was  only  in  181 7  that  the  Lutheran  and  Calvin- 
istic  churches  of  Prussia,  together  with  the  very 
name  of  Protestant,  were  abolished  by  royal  edict 
and  a  new  Prussian  establishment,  under  the  title 
of  "  evangelical,"  was  imposed  by  the  civil  power 
upon  a  Protestant  population  of  nearly  eight  mil- 
lions, whose  religious  and  moral  sense  was  so  dead 
that  they  seemed  to  regard  with  stolid  indifference 
this  interference  of  government  with  all  that  free- 
men deem  most  sacred  in  life.  Acts  of  parliament 
may  make  "  establishments,"  but  they  cannot 
inspire  religious  faith  and  life  ;  and  it  was  therefore 
not  surprisingrthat,  when  the  mummy  of  evangeli- 
19 


226  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

calism  was  put  out  into  the  open  air  of  freedom  by 
the  constitution  of  1850,  it  should  have  been  re- 
vealed to  all  that  the  thing  was  dead. 

Nevertheless,  the  Prussian  government  continued 
to  act  toward  the  Catholic  Church  with  great  jus- 
tice, and  even  friendliness,  and  the  war  against 
Catholic  Austria  in  1866  wrought  no  change  in  its 
ecclesiastical  policy.  Even  the  opening  of  the 
Vatican  Council  caused  no  alarm  in  Prussia;  on 
the  contrary,  King  William,  as  it  was  generally  be- 
lieved at  least,  was  most  civil  to  the  Holy  Father; 
and  Prince  Bismarck  himself  at  that  time  saw  no 
reason  for  apprehension,  though  he  had  been  the 
head  of  the  ministry  already  eight  years.  To  what, 
then,  are  we  to  attribute  Prussia's  sudden  change 
of  attitude  toward  the  church?  Who  began  the 
present  conflict,  and  what  was  its  provocation  ? 

This  is  a  question  which  has  been  much  dis- 
cussed in  the  Prussian  House  of  Deputies  and  else- 
where. Prince  Bismarck  has  openly  asserted  in  the 
House  of  Deputies  within  the  past  year  that  the 
provocation  was  the  definition  of  papal  infallibility 
by  the  Vatican  Council  on  the  18th  of  June,  1870, 
and  subsequently  the  hostile  attitude  of  the  party 
of  the  Centrum  toward  the  German  Empire. 

Herr  von  Kirchmann,  a  member  of  the  German 
Parliament  and  of  the  Prussian  House  of  Deputies, 
a  national  liberal,  and  not  a  Catholic,  but  in  the 
main  a  sympathizer  with  the  spirit  of  the  Falk 
legislation,  has  recently  discussed  this  whole  sub- 
ject with  great  ability,  and — as  far  as  it  is  pos- 
sible for  one  who  believes   in    tb.c    Hec^elian    doc- 


Prussia  and  the  ChurcJi.  227 

trine  that  "  the  state  is  the  present  god  " — also 
with  fairness.^ 

To  Prince  Bismarck's  first  assertion,  that  the 
definition  of  papal  infallibility  was  the  unpardon- 
able offence,  which  has  been  so  strongly  emphasized 
by  Mr.  Gladstone  and  re-echoed  with  parrot-like 
fidelity  by  the  anti-Catholic  press  of  Europe  and 
America,  Herr  von  Kirchmann  makes  the  following 
reply  : 

"  It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  so  experienc- 
ed a  statesman  as  Prince  Bismarck  can  ascribe  to 
this  decree  of  the  council  such  great  importance 
for  the  states  of  Europe,  and  particularly  for  Prus- 
sia and  Germany.  To  a  theorizer  sitting  behind 
his  books  such  a  decree,  it  may  be  allowed,  might 
appear  to  be  something  portentous,  since,  taken 
from  a  purely  theoretical  stand-point  and  according 
to  the  letter,  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  in  all 
questions  of  religion  and  morals  gives  him  unlimit- 
ed control  over  all  human  action  ;  and  many  a  Ca- 
tholic, when  called  upon  to  receive  this  infallibility 
as  part  of  his  faith,  may  have  found  that  he  was 
unable  to  follow  so  far  ;  but  a  statesman  ought  to 
know  how  to  distinguish,  especially  where  there  is 
question  of  the  Catholic  Church,  between  the  lit- 
eral import  of  dogmas  and  their  use  in  practical 
life.  In  the  Catholic  Church  as  a  whole  this  in- 
fallibility, as  is  well  known,  has  existed  from  the 
earliest  times ;  its  organ  hitherto  has  been  the 
CEcumenical  Council  in  union  with  the  Pope  ;  but 

*  Der  Culturkamf'f  in  Preussen  und  seine  Bedenken — "  Considerations  on 
the  Culture-Struggle  in  Prussia"— von  J.  H.  von  Kirchmann.     Leipzig,  1875. 


2  28  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

already  before  1870  it  was  disputed  whether  the 
Pope  might  not  alone  act  as  the  organ  of  infallibil- 
ity. In  1870  the  question  was  decided  in  favor  of 
the  Pope;  but  we  must  consider  that  the  oecumen- 
ical councils  have,  as  history  shows,  nearly  always 
framed  their  decrees  in  accordance  with  the  views 
of  the  court  of  Rome ;  and  this,  of  itself,  proves 
that  the  change  made  in  1870  is  rather  one  of  form 
than  of  essence.  Especially  false  is  it  to  maintain 
that  by  this  decree  a  complete  revolution  in  the 
constitution  of  the  church  has  been  made.  To  the 
theorizer  we  might  grant  the  abstract  possibility 
that  something  of  this  kind  might  some  day  or 
other  happen ;  but  such  possibilities  of  the  abuse 
of  a  right  are  found  in  all  the  relations  of  public 
life,  in  the  state  and  its  representatives  as  well  as 
in  the  church.  Even  in  constitutions  the  most 
carefully  drawn  up  such  possibilities  are  found  in 
all  directions.  What  a  statesman  has  to  consider 
is  not  mere  possibilities,  but  the  question  whether 
the  possessor  of  such  right  is  not  compelled,  from 
the  very  nature  of  things,  to  make  of  it  only  the 
most  moderate  and  prudent  use.  So  long,  there- 
fore, as  the  Pope  does  not  alter  the  constitution 
of  the  church,  that  constitution  remains,  precisely 
in  its  ancient  form.,  such  as  it  has  been  recognized 
and  tolerated  by  the  state  for  centuries ;  and 
wherever  the  relations  between  particular  states 
and  the  court  of  Rome  have  been  arranged  by 
concordats,  these  too  remain  unchanged,  unless 
the  states  themselves  find  it  convenient  to  depart 
from  them.     We  see,  in  fact,  that  this  infallibility 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  229 

of  the  Pope  has  in  no  country  of  Europe  or  Ameri- 
ca altered  one  jot  or  tittle  in  the  constitution  of  the 
Catholic  Church  ;  and  where  in  particular  countries 
such  changes  have  taken  place,  they  have  not  been 
made  by  the  ecclesiastical  government,  but  by  the 
state  and  in  its  interest.  In  Germany  even,  and 
in  Prussia  itself,  the  Pope  has,  since  1870,  made  no 
change  in  the  church  constitution,  as  determined 
by  the  Canon  Law;  and  when,  in  some  of  his  en- 
cyclicals and  other  utterances,  he  has  taken  up  a 
hostile  attitude  towards  the  German  Empire  and 
the  Prussian  state,  he  has  done  this  only  in  defence 
against  the  aggressive  legislation  of  the  civil  gov- 
ernment. He  has  never  hesitated  to  express  his 
disapprobation  of  the  new  church  laws,  but  he  has 
in  no  instance  touched  the  constitution  of  the  Ca- 
tholic Church  or  the  rights  of  the  bishops."  * 

It  seems  almost  needless  to  remark  that  there  is 
no  necessary  connection  between  the  doctrine  of 
Papal  infallibility  and  that  of  the  essential  organi- 
zation of  the  church  ;  that  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Pope  was  as  great,  and  universally  recognized  as 
such  by  Catholics,  before  the  Vatican  Council  as 
since ;  and  consequently  that  it  is  not  even  possi- 
ble that  the  definition  of  1870  should  make  any 
change  in  his  authoritative  relation  to,  or  power 
over,  the  church.  His  jurisdiction  is  wider  than  his 
infallibility,  and  independent  of  it ;  and  the  duty 
of  obedience  to  his  commands  existed  before  the 
dogma  was  defined  precisely  as  it  exists  now ;  and 
therefore    it    is  clearly   manifest  that  the    Vatican 

*  Ciilturkamp/,  pp.  5-7. 


230  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

decree   cannot    give  even  a   plausible   pretext    for 
such  legislation  as  the  Falk  Laws. 

"  Not  less  singular,"  continues  Herr  von  Kircli- 
mann,  *'  does  it  sound  to  hear  the  party  of  the 
Centrum  in  the  Reichstag  and  Prussian  Landtag 
denounced  as  the  occasion  of  the  new  regulations 
between  church  and  state.  The  members  of  this 
party  notoriously  represent  the  views  and  wishes 
of  the  majority  of  their  constituents,  and  just  as 
faithfully  as  the  members  of  the  parties  who  side 
with  the  government.  The  reproach  that  they  re- 
ceive their  instructions  from  Rome  is  not  borne 
out  by  the  facts;  and  if  there  were  an  understand- 
ing with  Rome  of  the  kind  which  their  adversaries 
affirm,  this  could  only  be  the  result  of  a  similar 
understanding  on  the  part  of  their  constituents. 
Nothing  could  more  strikingly  prove  that  the  Ca- 
tholic party  faithfully  represent  the  great  majority 
in  their  electoral  districts  than  the  repeated  re- 
election of  the  same  representatives  or  of  men  of 
similar  views.  To  this  we  must  add  that  the 
Centrum,  though  strong  in  numbers,  is  yet  in  a 
decided  minority  both  in  the  Reichstag  and  the 
Prussian  Landtag,  and  has  always  been  defeated  in 
its  opposition  to  the  recent  ecclesiastical  legislation. 
If  in  other  matters,  by  uniting  with  opposition 
parties,  it  has  caused  the  government  inconve- 
nience, we  have  no  right  to  ascribe  this  to  feelings 
of  hostility;  for  on  such  occasions  its  orators  have 
given  substantial  political  reasons  for  their  opposi- 
tion, and  instances  enough  might  be  enumerated 
in  which,  precisely  through  the  aid  of  the  Centrum, 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  231 

many  illiberal  and  dangerous  projects  of  law  have 
fallen  through  ;  and  for  this  the  party  deserves  the 
thanks  of  the  country. 

"The  present  action  of  the  state  against  the 
Catholic  Church  would  be  unjustifiable,  if  better 
grounds  could  not  be  adduced  in  its  favor.  For 
the  attentive  observer,  however,  valid  reasons  are 
not  wanting.  They  are  to  be  found,  to  put  the 
whole  matter  in  a  single  word,  in  the  great  power 
to  which  the  Catholic  Church  in  Prussia  had  attain- 
ed by  the  aid  of  the  constitution  and  the  favor  of 
the  government — a  power  which,  if  its  growth  had 
been  longer  tolerated,  would  have  become,  not  in- 
deed dangerous  to  the  existence  of  the  state,  but  a 
hindrance  to  the  right  fulfilment  of  the  ends  of  its 
existence."  * 

Neither  the  Vatican  Council,  then,  nor  the  Ca- 
tholics of  Prussia  have  done  anything  to  provoke 
the  present  persecution.  To  find  fault  with  the 
German  bishops  for  accepting  the  dogma  of  infalli- 
bility, after  having  strongly  opposed  its  definition 
by  the  council,  would  be  as  unreasonable  as  to 
blame  a  member  of  Congress  for  admitting  the 
binding  force  of  a  law  the  sanctioning  of  which  he 
had  done  everything  in  his  power  to  prevent.  Their 
duty,  beyond  all  question,  was  to  act  as  they  have 
acted.  This  was  not  the  offence  ;  the  unpardonable 
crime  was  that  the  church,  as  soon  as  she  was  un- 
loosed from  the  fetters  of  bureaucracy',  had  grown 
too  powerful.  We  doubt  whether  any  more  forci- 
ble argument  in  proof  of  the  indestructible  vitality 

♦  Page  g. 


232  Priiss 7 a  and  l/i e  CIi  u rch . 

of  the  church  can  be  found' than  that  which  may 
be  deduced  from  the  universal  consent  of  her  ene- 
mies, of  whatever  shade  of  beHef  or  unbeHef,  that 
the  only  way  in  which  she  can  be  successfully  op- 
posed is  to  array  against  her  the  strongest  of 
human  powers — the  state.  A  complete  revolution 
of  thought  upon  this  subject  has  taken  place  with- 
in the  last  half-century.  Up  to  that  time  it  was 
confidently  held  by  Protestants  as  well  as  infidels 
that,  to  undermine  and  finally  destroy  the  church, 
it  would  be  simply  necessary  to  withdraw  from  her 
the  support  of  the  state  ;  that  to  her  freedom  would 
certainly  prove  fatal.  The  experiment,  as  it  was 
thought,  had  not  been  satisfactorily  tried.  Ireland, 
indeed,  had  held  her  faith  for  three  hundred  years, 
in  spite  of  all  that  fiendish  crueltj^  could  invent  to 
destroy  it ;  but  persecution  has  always  been  the  life 
of  the  faith.  In  the  United  States  the  church  had 
been  free  since  the  war  of  independence,  but  of  us 
little  was  known  ;  and,  besides,  down  to,  say,  1830 
even  the  most  thoughtful  and  far-sighted  among  us 
had  serious  doubts  as  to  the  future  of  the  church 
in  this  country. 

But  with  the  emancipation  of  the  Catholics  in 
Great  Britain,  the  new  constitution  of  the  kingdom 
of  Belgium,  and  the  completer  organization  of  the 
church  in  the  United  States,  the  test  as  to  the  ac- 
tion of  freedom  upon  the  progress  of  Catholic  faith 
began  to  be  applied  over  a  wide  and  varied  field 
and  under  not  unfavorable  circumstances.  What 
the  result  has  been  we  may  learn  from  our  enemies. 
Mr.  Gladstone  expostulates  for  Great  Britain,  and 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  233 

a 

reaches  a  hand  of  sympathy  to  M.  Emile  de  Lave- 
leye  in  Belgium.  Dr.  Falk,  Dr.  Friedberg,  and 
even  the  moderate  Herr  von  Kirchmann,  defend 
the  tyrannical  j^/^:?/ Z^ze/^  as  necessary  to  stop  the 
growth  of  the  church  in  Germany  ;  and  at  home 
the  most  silent  of  Presidents  and  the  most  garrulous 
of  bishops,  forgetting  that  the  cause  of  temperance 
has  prior  claims  upon  their  attention,  have  raised 
the  ciy  of  alarm  to  warn  their  fellow-citizens  of  the 
dangerous  progress  of  popery  in  this  great  and  free 
country.  Time  was  when  "  the  Free  Church  in 
the  Free  State"  was  thought  to  be  the  proper  word 
of  command  ;  but  now  it  is  "  the  Fettered  Church 
in  the  Enslaved  State,"  since  no  state  that  meddles 
with  the  consciences  of  its  subjects  can  be  free. 

If  there  is  anything  for  which  Ave  feel  more 
especially  thankful,  it  is  that  henceforth  the  cause 
of  the  church  and  the  cause  of  freedom  are  insepa- 
rably united.  We  have  heard  to  satiety  that  the 
Catholic  Church  is  the  greatest  conservative  force 
in  the  world,  the  most  powerful  element  of  order  in 
society,  the  noblest  school  of  respect  in  which  man- 
kind have  ever  been  taught.  Praised  be  God  that 
now,  as  in  the  early  days,  he  is  making  it  impossi- 
ble that  Catholics  should  not  be  on  the  side  of  lib- 
erty, as  the  church  has  always  been  ;  so  that  all  men 
may  see  that,  if  we  love  order  the  more,  we  love  not 
liberty  the  less  ! 

"  I  will  sing  to  my  God  as  long  as  I  shall  be," 
wrote  an  inspired  king ;  "  put  not  your  trust  in 
princes."  No,  nor  in  governments,  nor  in  states, 
but  in  God  who  is  the  Lord,  and  in  the  poor  whom 


234  Prussia  and  the  Church, 

Jesus  loved.  From  God  out  of  the  people  came 
the  church  ;  through  God  back  to  the  people  is 
she  going.  We  know  there  are  still  many  Catho- 
lics who  trust  in  kings  and  believe  in  salvation 
through  them ;  but  God  will  make  them  wiser. 
The  Spirit  that  sits  at  the  roaring  Loom  of  Time 
will  weave  for  them  other  garments.  The  irresis- 
tible charm  of  the  church,  humanly  speaking,  lies 
in  the  fact  that  she  comes  closer  to  the  hearts  of 
the  people  than  any  other  power  that  has  ever 
been  brought  to  bear  upon  mankind. 

Having  shown  that  the  oppressive  ecclesiastical 
legislation  of  Germany  was  not  provoked  by  the 
church,  and  that  its  only  excuse  is  the  increasing 
power  of  the  church,  Herr  von  Kirchmann  reduces 
all  farther  discussion  of  this  subject  to  the  two  fol- 
lowing heads  :  1st.  How  far  ought  the  state  to  go 
in  setting  bounds  to  this  power  of  the  Catholic 
Church  ?  and  2d.  What  means  ought  it  to  em- 
ploy ? 

In  view  of  the  dangers  with  which  every  open 
breach  of  the  peace  between  church  and  state  is 
fraught  for  the  people,  it  would  have  been  advisable, 
he  thinks,  from  political  motives,  to  have  tried  to 
settle  the  difficulty  by  a  mutual  understanding  be- 
tween the  two  powers;  nor  would  it,  in  his  opinion, 
be  derogatory  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  state  to 
treat  the  church  as  an  equal,  since  she  embraces  in 
her  fold  all  the  Catholics  of  the  world,  who  have 
their  directing  head  in  the  Pope,  whose  sovereign 
ecclesiastical  power  cannot,  therefore,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  be  called  in  question. 


Prussia  and  the  C/mrck.  235 

That  Prussia  did  not  make  any  effort  to  see 
what  could  be  effected  by  this  policy  of  conciliation 
may,  in  the  opinion  of  Herr  von  Kirchmann,  find 
some  justification  in  the  fact  that  the  government 
did  not  expect,  and  could  not  in  1871  foresee,  the 
determined  opposition  of  the  Catholics  to  the  May 
Laws  of  1873.  At  any  rate,  as  he  thinks,  the  high 
and  majestatic  right  of  the  state  is  supreme,  and 
it  alone  must  determine,  in  the  ultimate  instance, 
how  far  and  how  long  it  will  acknowledge  any 
claim  of  the  church.  Thus  even  this  statesman, 
who  is  of  the  more  moderate  school  of  Prussian 
politicians,  holds  that  the  church  has  no  rights 
which  the  state  is  bound  to  respect ;  that  poli- 
tical interests  are  paramount,  and  conscience,  in 
the  modern  as  in  the  ancient  pagan  state,  has  no 
claim  upon  the  recognition  of  the  government. 
English  and  American  Protestants,  where  their  own 
interests  are  concerned,  would  be  as  little  inclined 
to  accept  this  doctrine  as  Catholics  ;  in  fact,  this 
country  was  born  of  a  protest  against  the  assump- 
tion of  state  supremacy  over  conscience;  and  yet 
so  blinding  and  misleading  is  prejudice  that  the 
Falk  Laws  receive  their  heart-felt  sympathy. 

Though  Herr  von  Kirchmann  accepts  without  re- 
servation the  principles  which  underlie  the  recent 
Prussian  anti-Catholic  legislation,  and  thinks  the 
May  Laws  have  been  drawn  up  with  great  wisdom 
and  consummate  knowledge  of  the  precise  points  at 
which  the  state  should  oppose  the  growing  power 
of  the  church,  he  yet  freely  admits  that  there  are 
grave  doubts  whether  the  present  policy  of  Prussia 


■o 


6  Prussia  a?id  the  Church. 


can  be  successfully  carried  out.  That  Prince  Bis- 
marck and  Dr.  Falk  had  but  a  very  imperfect 
knowledge  of  the  difficulties  which  lay  in  their 
path,  the  numerous  supplementary  bills  which 
have  been  repeatedly  introduced  in  order 
to  give  effect  to  the  May  Laws  plainly  show. 
Where  there  is  question  of  principle  and  of  con- 
science Prince  Bismarck  is  not  at  home.  He  be- 
lieves in  force  ;  like  the  first  Napoleon,  holds  that 
Providence  is  always  on  the  side  of  the  biggest  can- 
nons; sneers  about  going  to  Canossa,  as  Napoleon 
mockingly  asked  the  pope  whether  his  excommuni- 
cation would  make  the  arms  fall  from  the  hands  of 
his  veterans.  He  knows  the  workings  of  courts, 
and  is  a  master  in  the  devious  ways  of  diplomacy. 
He  can  estimate  with  great  precision  the  resour- 
ces of  a  country  ;  he  has  a  keen  eye  for  the  weak 
points  of  an  adversary.  His  tactics,  like  Napo- 
leon's, are  to  bring  to  bear  upon  each  given  point 
of  attack  a  force  greater  than  the  enemy's.  He 
has,  in  his  public  life,  never  known  what  it  is  to 
respect  right  or  principle.  With  the  army  at  his 
back  he  has  trampled  upon  the  Prussian  constitu- 
tion with  the  same  daring  recklessness  with  which 
he  now  violates  the  most  sacred  rights  of  con- 
science. Nothing,  in  his  eyes,  is  holy  but  success, 
and  he  has  been  consecrated  by  it,  so  that  the  Bis- 
marck-cultus  has  spread  far  beyond  the  Fatherland 
to  England  and  the  United  States.  Carlyle  has  at 
last  found  a  living  hero,  the  very  impersonation  of 
the  brute  force  which  to  him  is  ideal  and  admira- 
ble ;  and  at  eighty  he  offers  incense  and  homage  to 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  237 

the  idol.  We  freely  give  Prince  Bismarck  credit 
for  his  remarkable  gifts — indomitable  will,  reckless 
courage,  practical  knowledge  of  men,  considered  as 
intelligent  automata  whose  movements  are  directed 
by  a  kind  of  bureaucratic  and  military  mechanism; 
and  this  is  the  kind  of  men  with  whom,  for  the 
most  part,  he  has  had  to  deal.  For  your  thorough 
Prussian,  though  the  wildest  of  speculators  and  the 
boldest  of  theorizers,  is  the  tamest  of  animals.  No 
poor  Russian  soldier  ever  crouched  more  submis- 
sively beneath  the  knout  than  do  the  Prussian  pan- 
theists and  culturists  beneath  the  lash  of  a  master. 
Like  Voltaire,  they  probably  prefer  the  rule  of  one 
fine  Lion  to  that  of  a  hundred  rats  of  their  own 
sort.  Prince  Bismarck  knew  his  men,  and  we  give 
him  credit  for  his  sagacity.  Not  every  eye  could 
have  pierced  the  mist,  and  froth,  and  sound,  and 
fury  of  German  professordom,  and  beheld  the  cra- 
ven heart  that  was  beneath. 

Only  men  who  believe  in  God  and  the  soul  are 
dangerous  rebels.  Why  should  he  who  has  no  faith 
make  a  martyr  of  himself?  Why,  since  there  is 
nothing  but  law,  blind  and  merciless  force,  throw 
yourself  beneath  the  wheels  of  the  state  Juggernaut 
to  be  crushed  ?  The  religion  of  culture  is  the  re- 
ligion of  indulgence,  and  no  godlike  rebel  against 
tyranny  and  brute  force  ever  sprang  from  such  wor- 
ship. So  long  as  Prince  Bismarck  had  to  deal  with 
men  who  were  nourished  on  "  philosophy's  sweet 
milk,"  and  who  worshipped  at  the  altar  of  culture, 
who  had  science  but  not  faith,  opinions  but  not 
convictions,  amongst  whom,  consequently,  organic 


238  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

union  was  impossible,  his  policy  of  making.  Ger- 
many "  by  blood  and  iron  "  was  successful  enough. 
But,  like  all  great  conquerors,  he  longed  for  more 
kingdoms  to  subdue,  and  finding  right  around  him 
a  large  and  powerful  body  of  German  citizens  who 
did  not  accept  the  "new  faith  "  that  the  state — 
in  other  words,  Prince  Bismarck — is  "the  present 
god,"  just  as  a  kind  of  diversion  between  victories, 
he  turned  to  give  a  lesson  to  the  Pfaffen  and  cleri- 
cal Dumnikopfe,  who  burnt  no  incense  in  honor  of 
his  divinity.  In  taking  this  step  it  is  almost  need- 
less to  say  that  Prince  Bismarck  sought  to  pass 
over  a  chasm  which  science  itself  does  not  profess 
to  have  bridged — that,  namely,  which  lies  between 
the  worlds  of  matter  and  of  spirit.  Of  the  new 
conflict  upon  which  he  was  entering  he  could  have 
only  vague  and  inaccurate  notions.  Nothing  is  so 
misleading  as  contempt — a  feeling  in  which  the 
wise  never  indulge,  but  which  easily  becomes  ha- 
bitual with  men  spoiled  by  success.  To  the  man 
who  had  organized  the  armies  and  guided  the 
policy  which  had  triumphed  at  Sadowa  and  Sedan 
what  opposition  could  be  made  by  a  few  poor 
priests  and  beggar-monks  ?  Would  the  arms  fall 
from  the  hands  of  the  proudest  soldiers  of  Europe 
because  the  Pfaffen  were  displeased  ?  Or  why 
should  not  the  model  culture-state  of  the  world 
make  war  upon  ignorance  and  superstition  ? 

Of  the  real  nature  and  strength  of  the  forces 
which  would  be  marshalled  in  this  great  battle  of 
souls  a  man  of  blood  and  iron  could  form  no  just 
estimate.      "  To  those  who  believe,"  said  Christ, 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  239 

"all  things  are  possible  "  ;  but  what  meaning  have 
these  words  for  Prince  Bismarck?  The  soul,  firm 
in  its  faith,  appealing  from  tyrant  kings  and  states 
to  God,  is  invincible.  Lifting  itself  to  the  Infinite, 
it  draws  thence  a  divine  power.  Like  liberty,  it  is 
brightest  in  dungeons,  in  fetters  freest,  and  con- 
quers with  its  martyrdom.  Needle-guns  cannot 
reach  it,  and  above  the  deadly  roar  of  cannon  it 
rises  godlike  and  supreme. 

"  For  though  the  giant  Ages  heave  the  hill 
And  break  the  shore,  and  evermore 
Make  and  break  and  work  their  will  ; 
Though  world  on  world  in  myriad  myriads  roll 
Round  us,  each  with  different  powers 
And  other  forms  of  life  than  ours, 
What  know  we  greater  than  the  soul  ? 
On  God  and  godlike  men  we  build  our  trust." 

Men  who  have  un wrapt  themselves  of  the  garb 
and  vesture  of  thought  and  sentiment  with  which 
the  world  had  dressed  them  out,  who  have  been 
born  again  into  the  higher  life,  who  have  been 
clothed  in  the  charity  and  meekness  of  Christ,  who 
for  his  dear  sake  have  put  all  things  beneath  their 
feet,  who  love  not  the  world,  who  venerate  more 
the  rags  of  the  beggar  than  the  purple  of  Caisar, 
who  fear  as  they  love  God  alone,  for  whom  life  is 
no  blessing  and  death  infinite  gain,  form  the  invin- 
cible army  of  Christ  foredoomed  to  conquer.  "  This 
is  the  victory  which  overcomcth  the  world — our 
Faith." 

Who  has  ever  forgotten  those  lines  of  Tacitus, 
inserted  as  an  altogether  trifling  circumstance  in 
the  reign  of  Nero? — "So  for  the   quieting  of  this 


240  Pmssia  and  the  Church. 

rumor  [of  his  having  set  fire  to  Rome]  Nero  judi- 
cially charged  with  the  crime,  and  punished  with 
most  studied  severities,  that  class,  hated  for  their 
general  wickedness,  whom  the  vulgar  call  Chris- 
tians. The  originator  of  that  name  was  one  Christ, 
who  in  the  reign  of  Tfberius  suffered  death  by  sen- 
tence of  the  procurator,  Pontius  Pilate.  The  bane- 
ful superstition,  thereby  ;*epressed  for  the  time, 
again  broke  out,  not  only  over  Judea,  the  native 
soil  of  the  mischief,  but  in  the  City  also,  where 
from  every  side  all  atrocious  and  abominable 
things  collect  and  flourish."* 

"  Tacitus,"  says  Carlyle,  referring  to  this  pas- 
sage, "  was  the  wisest,  most  penetrating  man  of 
his  generation  ;  and  to  such  depth,  and  no  deeper, 
has  he  seen  into  this  transaction,  the  most  impor- 
tant that  has  occurred  or  can  occur  in  the  annals 
of  mankind." 

We  doubt  whether  Prince  Bismarck  to-day  has 
any  truer  knowledge  of  the  real  worth  and  power 
of  the  living  Catholic  faith  on  which  he  is  making 
war  than  had  Tacitus  eighteen  hundred  years  ago, 
when  writing  of  the  rude  German  barbarians  who 
were  hovering  on  the  confines  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, and  who  were  to  have  a  history  in  the  world 
only  through  the  action  of  that  "  baneful  supersti- 
tion "  which  he  considered  as  one  of  the  most 
abominable  products  of  the  frightful  corruptions  of 
his  age. 

That    the    Prussian   government  was  altogether 

♦Tacit.  Annal.  xv.  44. 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  241 

unprepared  for  the  determined  though  passive  op- 
position to  the  May  Laws  which  the  Catholics  have 
made,  Herr  von  Kirchmann  freely  confesses.  It 
was  not  expected  that  there  would  be  such  per- 
fect union  between  the  clergy  and  the  people ;  on 
the  contrary,  it  was  generally  supposed  that,  with 
the  aid  of  the  Draconian  penalties  threatened  for 
the  violation  of  the  Falk  Laws,  the  resistance  of 
the  priests  themselves  would  be  easily  overcome. 
These  men  love  their  own  comfort  too  much,  said 
the  culturists,  to  be  willing  to  go  to  prison  and 
live  on  beans  and  water  for  the  sake  of  technicali- 
ties ;  and  so  they  chuckled  over  their  pipes  and 
lager-beer  at  the  thought  of  their  easy  victory 
over  the  Pfaffen.  They  were  mistaken,  and  Herr 
von  Kirchmann  admits  that  the  courage  of  the  bish- 
ops and  priests  has  not  been  broken  but  strength- 
ened by  their  sufferings  for  the  faith. 

"  So  long  as  we  were  permitted  to  hope,"  he 
says,  "  that  we  should  have  only  the  priests  to  deal 
with,  there  was  less  reason  for  doubt  as  to  the  po- 
licy of  executing  the  laws  in  all  their  rigor  ;  but  the 
situation  was  wholly  altered  when  it  became  mani- 
fest that  the  congregations  held  the  same  views  as 
the  bishops  and  priests.  .  .  .  It  is  easy  to  see  that 
all  violent,  even  though  legal,  proceedings  of  the 
government  against  these  convictions  of  the  Cath- 
olic people  can  only  weaken  those  proper,  and  in 
the  last  instance  alone  effective,  measures  through 
which  the  May  Laws  can  successfully  put  bounds 
to  the  growing  power  of  the  church.  These  mea- 
sures— viz.,  a  better  education  of  the  people  and  a 


242  Prussia  and  the  Church, 

higher  culture  of  the  priest's — can,  from  the  nature 
of  things,  exert  their  influence  only  by  degrees. 
Not  till  the  next  generation  can  we  hope  to  gather 
the  fruit  of  this  seed  ;  and  not  then,  indeed,  if  the 
reckless  execution  of  the  May  Laws  calls  forth  an 
opposition  in  the  Catholic  populations  which  will 
shake  confidence  in  the  just  intentions  of  the  gov- 
ernment, and  beget  in  the  congregations  feelings  of 
hatred  for  everything  connected  with  this  legisla- 
tion. Such  feelings  will  unavoidably  be  communi- 
cated to  the  children,  and  the  teacher  will  in  conse- 
quence be  deprived  of  that  authority  without  which 
his  instructions  must  lack  the  persuasive  force  that 
is  inherent  in  truth.  In  such  a  state  of  warfare 
even  the  higher  culture  of  the  clergy  must  be  use- 
less. Those  who  stand  on  the  side  of  the  govern- 
ment will,  precisely  on  that  account,  fail  to  win  the 
confidence  of  their  people  ;  uind  the  stronger  the 
aged  pastors  emphasize  the  Canon  Law  of  the 
church,  the  more  energetically  they  extend  the 
realms  of  faith  even  to  the  hierarchical  constitution 
of  the  church,  the  more  readily  and  faithfully  will 
their  congregations  follow  them. 

"It  cannot  be  dissembled  that  the  government, 
through  the  rigorous  execution  of  the  May  Laws, 
is  raging  against  its  own  flesh  and  blood,  and  is 
thereby  robbing  itself  of  the  only  means  by  which 
it  can  have  any  hope  of  finally  coming  forth  victo- 
rious from  the  present  conflict.  It  may  be  objected 
that  the  resistance  which  is  now  so  wide-spread  can- 
not be  much  longer  maintained,  and  that  all  that 
is  needed   to  crush  it  and  bring  about  peace  with 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  243 

the  church  is  to  increase  the  pressure  of  the  law. 
Assertions  of  this  kind  are  made  with  great  confi- 
dence by  the  liberals  of  both  Houses  of  the  Land- 
tag whenever  the  government  presents  a  new  bill ; 
and  the  liberal  newspapers,  which  never  grow  tired 
of  this  theme,  declare  that  the  result  is  certain  and 
even  near  at  hand. 

"  Now,  even  though  we  should  attach  no  impor- 
tance to  the  contrary  assertions  of  the  Catholic  par- 
ty, it  is  yet  evident,  from  the  declarations  of  the 
government  itself,  that  it  is  not  at  all  confident  of 
reaching  this  result  with  the  aid  of  the  means  which 
it  has  hitherto  employed  or  of  those  in  preparation, 
but  that  it  is  making  ready  for  a  prolonged  resis- 
tance of  the  clergy,  who  are  upheld  and  support- 
ed by  the  great  generosity  of  the  Catholic  people. 
The  ovations  which  the  priests  receive  from  their 
congregations  when  they  come  forth  from  prison 
are  not  falling  off,  but  are  increasing  ;  and  this  is 
equally  true  of  the  pecuniary  aid  given  to  them. 
It  is  possible  that  much  of  this  may  have  been  got- 
ten up  by  the  priests  themselves  as  demonstration  ; 
but  the  displeasure  of  the  still  powerful. government 
officials  which  the  participants  incur,  and  the  great- 
ness of  the  money-offerings,  are  evidence  of  earnest 
convictions. 

"  Nothing,  however,  so  strongly  witnesses  to  the 
existence  of  a  perfect  understanding  between  the 
congregations  and  the  priests  as  the  fact  that, 
though  the  law  of  May,  1874,  gave  to  those  congre- 
gations whose  pastors  had  been  removed  or  had 
not  been  legally  appointed  by  the  bishops  the  right 


244  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

to  elect  others,  yet  not  even  one  congregation  has 
up  to  the  present  moment  made  any  use  of  this 
privilege.  When  we  consider  that  the  number  of 
parishes  where  there  is  no  pastor  must  be  at  least  a 
hundred  ;  that  in  itself  such  right  of  choice  corre- 
sponds with  the  wishes  of  the  cpngregations ;  far- 
ther, that  the  law  requires  for  the  validity  of  the 
election  merely  a  majority  of  the  members  who  put 
in  an  appearance  ;  that  a  proposition  made  to  the 
LandratJi  by  ten  parishioners  justifies  him  in  order- 
ing an  election  ;  and  that,  on  the  part  of  the  influ- 
ential officials  and  their  organs,  nothing  has  been 
left  undone  to  induce  the  congregations  to  demand 
elections,  not  easily  could  a  more  convincing  proof 
of  the  perfect  agreement  of  the  people  with  their 
priests  be  found  than  the  fact  that  to  this  day  in 
only  two  or  three  congregations  has  it  been  possi- 
ble to  hunt  up  ten  men  who  were  willing  to  make 
such  a  proposal,  and  that  not  even  in  a  single 
congregation  has  an  election  of  this  kind  taken 
place."  "^ 

This  is  indeed  admirable ;  and  it  may,  we  think, 
be  fairly  doubted  whether,  in  the  whole  history  of 
the  church,  so  large  a  Catholic  population  has  ever, 
under  similar  trials,  shown  greater  strength  or  con- 
stancy. Of  the  peculiar  nature  of  these  trials  we 
shall  speak  hereafter ;  the  present  article  we  will 
bring  to  a  close  with  a  few  remarks  upon  what  we 
conceive  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  important 
agencies  in  bringing  about  the  perfect   unanimity 

♦  Culturknwpf,  pp.  16-19.  i 


Pi'iissia  and  the  Church.  245 

and  harmony  of  action  between  priests  and  people 
to  which  the  Catholics  of  Prussia  must  in  great 
measure  ascribe  their  immovable  firmness  in  the 
presence  of  a  most  terrible  foe.  We  refer  to  those 
Catholic  associations  in  which  cardinals,  bishops, 
priests,  and  people  have  been  brought  into  immedi- 
ate contact,  uniting  their  wisdom  and  strength  for 
the  attainment  of  definite  ends. 

Such  unions  have  nowhere  been  more  numerous 
or  more  thoroughly  organized  than  in  Germany, 
though  their  formation  is  of  recent  date.  It  was 
during  the  revolution  of  1848,  of  which  we  have 
already  spoken,  that  the  German  Catholics  were 
roused  to  a  more  comprehensive  knowledge  of  the 
situation,  and  resolved  to  combine  for  the  defence 
of  their  rights  and  the  protection  of  their  religion. 
Popular  unions  under  the  name  and  patronage  of 
Pius  IX.  (Pius-Vereine)  were  formed  throughout 
the  fatherland,  with  the  primary  object  of  bringing 
together  once  a  week  large  numbers  of  Catholic 
men  of  every  condition  in  life.  At  these  weekly 
meetings  the  questions  of  the  day,  in  so  far  as  they 
touched  upon  Catholic  interests,  were  freely  dis- 
cussed, and  thus  an  intelligent  and  enlightened 
Catholic  public  opinion  was  created  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  In  refuting 
calumnies  against  the  church  the  speakers  never 
failed  to  demand  the  fullest  liberty  for  all  Catholic 
institutions. 

On  the  occasion  of  beginning  the  restoration  and 
completion  of  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne,  the  most 
religious  of  churches,  the  proposition  that  an  annual 


246  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

General  Assembly  of  all  the  unions  should  be  held 
was  made  and  received  with  boundless  enthusiasm. 
The  first  General  Assembly  took  place  at  Mayence 
in  October,  1848;  and  thither  came  delegates  from 
Austria,  Prussia,  Bavaria,  Saxony,  Hanover,  and  all 
the  other  states  of  Germany,  whose  confidence  and 
earnestness  were  increased  by  the  presence  of  the 
Catholic  members  of  the  Parliament  of  Frankfort. 
For  the  first  time  since  Luther's  apostasy  the 
Catholics  of  Germany  breathed  the  air  of  liberty. 
The  bishops  assembled  at  Wilrzburg,  gave  their 
solemn  approbation  to  the  great  work,  and  Pius 
IX.  sent  his  apostolic  benediction.  Since  that  time 
General  Assemblies  have  been  held  at  Breslau, 
May,  1849;  Ratisbon,  October,  184Q;  Linz,  1850; 
Mayence,  1851  ;  Miinster,  1852;  Vienna,  1853; 
Linz,  1856;  Salzburg,  1857;  Cologne,  1858;  Frey- 
burg,  1859;  Prague,  i860;  Munich,  1861  ;  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  1862  ;  Frankfort,  1863,  and  in  other  cities, 
down  to  the  recent  persecutions. 

These  assemblies  represented  a  complete  system 
of  organization,  in  which  no  Catholic  interest  was 
forgotten.  Every  village  and  hamlet  in  the  land 
was  there,  if  not  immediately,  through  some  central 
union.  We  have  had  the  honor  of  being  present 
at  more  than  one  of  these  assemblies,  and  the 
impressions  which  we  then  received  are  abiding. 
Side  by  side  with  cardinals,  bishops,  princes,  no- 
blemen, and  the  most  learned  of  professors  sat 
mechanics,  carpenters,  shoemakers,  and  black-- 
smiths — not  as  in  the  act  of  worship,  in  which  the 
presence  of  the   Most   High   God   dwarfs  our  uni- 


Prussia  atid  the  Church.  247 

versal  human  littlenesses  to  the  dead-level  of  an 
equal  insignificance,  but  in  active  thought  and  co- 
operation for  the  furtherance  of  definite  religious 
and  social  ends.  The  brotherhood  of  the  race  was 
there,  an  accomplished  fact,  and  one  felt  the 
breathing  as  of  a  divine  Spirit  compared  with 
whose  irresistible  force  great  statesmen  and  mighty 
armies  are  weak  as  the  puppets  of  a  child's  show. 

We  have  not  the  space  to  describe  more  minutely 
the  ends,  aims,  and  workings  of  the  numberless 
Catholic  associations  of  Germany  ;  but  we  must 
express  our  deep  conviction  that  no  study  could 
be  more  replete  with  lessons  of  practical  wisdom 
for  the  Catholics  of  the  United  States.  Organiza- 
tion is  precisely  what  we  most  lack.  Our  priests 
are  laborious,  our  people  are  devoted,  but  we  have 
not  even  an  organized  Catholic  public  opinion — 
nay,  no  organ  to  serve  as  its  channel,  and  make 
itself  heard  of  the  whole  country.  Many  seem  to 
think  that  the  very  question  of  the  necessity  of 
Catholic  education  is  still  an  open  one  for  us ;  and 
this  is  not  surprising,  since  Ave  have  no  system  of 
Catholic  education.  Catholic  schools,  indeed,  in 
considerable  number,  there  are,  but  the  discipline, 
plan  of  studies,  and  even  the  religious  instruction, 
are  left  to  be  determined  by  the  fancy  or  whims 
of  individuals.  The  great  need  of  the  church  in 
this  country  is  the  organization  of  priests  and 
people  for  the  promotion  of  Catholic  interests. 
Through  this  we  will  learn  to  know  one  another; 
our  views  will  be  enlarged,  our  sympathies  deep- 
ened, and  the  truth  will  dawn  upon  us  that,  if  we 


248  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

wish  to  be  true  to  the  great  mission  which  God 
has  given  us,  the  time  has  come  when  American 
Catholics  must  take  up  works  which  do  not  spe- 
cially concern  any  one  diocese  more  than  another, 
but  whose  significance  will  be  as  wide  as  the  na- 
tion's life. 


PRUSSIA  AND   THE  CHURCH. 


III. 

E  have  already  alluded  to  that  feature  in 
the  recent  ecclesiastical  legislation  of 
Prussia  which  gives  to  the  people  the 
right  to  choose  their  pastors,  and  we 
have  also  seen  how  nobly  the  Catholics  of  Germany 
have  thwarted  this  unholy  attempt  to  create  dis- 
sension and  discord  in  the  church.  When  it  could 
no  longer  be  doubted  that  the  German  bishops 
were  immovable  in  their  allegiance  to  the  pope, 
Prussia  sought,  by  holding  out  every  possible  in- 
ducement to  apostasy,  to  create  disunion  between 
the  priests  and  the  bishops ;  but  in  this,  too,  she 
met  with  signal  defeat.  Nothing,  therefore,  re- 
mained to  be  done  but  to  devise  measures  where- 
by the  administration  of  ecclesiastical  affairs  would 
be  placed  exclusively  in  the  hands  of  the  laity  ; 
since  the  breaking' of  the  bonds  which  unite  church 
and  state  would  not  have  as  a  result  that  weaken- 
ing of  ecclesiastical  power  which  is  so  ardently 
desired.  This  Professor  Friedberg,  in  his  German 
Empire  and  the  Catholic  Church,  expressly  states 
in  the  following  words  : 

"  If  the  government  were  to  adhere  to  the  plan 
of  a   total    separation  of   church  and   state,  what 

21 


250  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

would  be  the  consequence  ?  Would  the  bishops 
lose  their  authority  because  the  state  no  longer 
recognized  it  ?  Would  the  parochial  system  be 
broken  up  if  unsupported  by  the  state?  In  a 
word,  would  the  church  lose  any  of  her  power? 
It  would  argue  an  absolute  want  of  perception  and 
a  total  ignorance  of  Catholic  history  to  affirm  that 
she  would.  The  stream  which  for  centuries  has 
flowed  in  its  own  channel  does  not  run  dry  because 
its  course  is  obstructed.  It  only  overflows  and 
floods  the  country.  To  continue  the  metaphor, 
we  must  first  seek  with  all  care  to  draw  off  the 
waters,  and  to  lead  them  into  pools  and  reservoirs, 
where  what  remains  will  readily  evaporate." 

The  Protestants  of  Prussia  are  opposed  to  the 
separation  of  church  and  state,  because  they  are 
well  aware  that  in  the  present  condition  of  reli- 
gious opinion  in  Germany  the  rationalists  and  so- 
cialists would  at  once  get  control  of  most  of  the 
parishes  of  the  Evangelical  church,  if  it  were  de- 
prived of  the  support  of  the  government;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  both  they  and  the  infidels  are 
persuaded  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  quite  able 
to  maintain  herself,  and  even  to  wax  strong,  with- 
out any  help  from  the  temporal  power. 

*'  One  thing,"  says  the  Edinburgh  Revieiv,  "  the 
state  is  quite  at  liberty  to  do.  The  state  is  not 
bound  to  pay  or  maintain  churches  or  sects  which 
it  does  not  approve.  Indeed,  if  these  conditions 
are  annexed  to  the  acceptance  of  state  payment, 
the  church  herself  would  do  well  to  reject  the 
terms.      But  will   Prince   Bismarck   withdraw   the 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  251 

stipend  and  set  the  church  free  ?  Nothing  of  the 
kind.  There  is  no  freedom  of  religious  orders  or 
communities  in  Prussia.  The  whole  spirit  of  these 
laws  is  to  make  every  form  of  religious  belief  and 
organization  as  subservient  to  the  state  as  a  Prus- 
sian recruit  is  to  the  rattan  of  a  corporal.  That 
we  abhor  and  denounce  as  an  intolerable  oppres- 
sion ;  and  it  is  only  by  the  strangest  perversion 
of  judgment  that  any  Englishman  can  have  ima- 
gined that  the  cause  of  true  religious  liberty  was 
identical  with  the  policy  of  Prince  Bismarck."* 

To  consent  to  a  separation  of  church  and  state 
would  be  a  recognition  of  the  independent  exis- 
tence of  the  church,  which  Prussia  holds  to  be 
contrary  to  the  true  theory  of  the  constitution  of 
human  society  in  relation  to  government  and  re- 
ligion. This  theory  is  that  man  exists  for  the 
state,  to  which  he  owes  his  supreme  and  undivid- 
ed allegiance  ;  whose  duty  it  is  to  train  and  govern 
him  for  its  own  service  alike  in  peace  and  war. 
All  the  interests  of  society,  therefore,  material, 
political,  educational,  and  religious,  must  be  sub- 
jected to  the  state,  independently  of  which  no 
organization  of  any  kind  ought  to  be  permitted  to 
exist.  And  in  fact  the  whole  spirit  of  the  recent 
ecclesiastical  legislation  of  Prussia  is  in  perfect  con- 
sonance with  this  theory.  The  Falk  Laws  deny 
to  the  church  the  right  to  educate  her  priests,  to 
decide  as  to  their  fitness  for  the  care  of  souls,  to 
appoint  them  to  or  remove  them  from  office ;  in 
a   word,  the    right  to  administer  her   own   affairs, 

*  April,  1874,  p.  193. 


252  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

and  consequently  to  exist  at  all  as  an  organization 
separate  from  the  state. 

It  can  hardly  surprise  us  that  the  attempt  should 
have  been  made  to  prove  that  this  is  in  accordance 
with  the  teachings  of  the  Bible. 

"  The  New  Testament,"  says  the  British  Quar- 
terly, "  requires  that  the  Christian  shall  be  a  loyal 
subject  of  the  government  under  which  he  lives. 
'  Let  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the  higher  powers. 
For  there  is  no  power  but  of  God ;  the  powers 
that  be  are  ordained  of  God  :  whosoever  therefore 
resisteth  the  power,  resisteth  the  ordinance  of 
God.'  "  * 

After  quoting  several  texts  from  the  Epistles  of 
St.  Paul,  of  the  same  general  import,  the  writer  in 
the  British  Quarterly  continues  : 

"  Now,  it  is  impossible  to  find  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament any  injunctions  of  obedience  to  organized 
ecclesiastical  power,  like  those  here  given  of  obe- 
dience to  the  civil  government.  It  is  not  ecclesi- 
astical authority,  nor  a  corporate  ecclesiastical  in- 
stitution, but  the  personal  God,  and  the  individual 
conscience  in  its  direct  personal  relations  with  God, 
which  is  set  over  against  an  unrighteous  demand 
of  the  civil  authority  in  the  crucial  motto  of  Peter, 
*  We  ought  to  obey  God  rather  than  men,'  and  in 
the  teaching  of  Christ,  '  Render  unto  Caesar  the 
things  which  are  Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things 
which  are  God's.'  Of  conscience  as  an  ecclesiasti- 
cal corporation,  or  of  conscience  as  an  imputed  or 
vicarious  faculty,  determined  and  exercised  by  one 

*  Romans  xiii.  i,  2. 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  253 

for  another,  the  ethics  of  the  New  Testament  have 
no  knowledge."  * 

It  is  hard  to  realize  the  ignorance  or  the  bad 
faith  of  a  man  who  is  capable  of  making  such 
statements  as  these.  Let  us  take  the  last  words 
of  the  gospel  of  St.  Matthew  :  **  And  Jesus  com- 
ing, spoke  to  them,  saying:  All  power  is  given  to 
me  in  heaven  and  in  earth.  Going,  therefore,  teach 
ye  all  nations,  .  .  .  teaching  them  to  observe  all 
things  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you  ;  and, 
behold,  I  am  with  you  all  days,  even  to  the  con-, 
summation  of  the  world."  Here  surely  is  an  or- 
ganized body  of  men,  receiving  from  Christ  him- 
self the  divine  command  to  teach  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  their  religious  faith  and  duties,  which 
necessarily  carries  with  it  the  right  to  exact  obe- 
dience. But,  lest  there  be  any  room  for  doubt,  let 
us  hear  Christ  himself:  "  He  that  heareth  you, 
heareth  me  :  and  he  that  despiseth  you,  despiseth 
me.  And  he  that  despiseth  me,  despiseth  him 
that  sent  me."  f 

Again  :  "And  if  he  will  not  hear  the  church,  let 
him  be  to  thee  as  the  heathen  and  the  publican. 
Amen  I  say  to  you,  whatsoever  you  shall  bind 
upon  earth,  shall  be  bound  also  in  heaven  :  and 
whatsoever  you  shall  loose  upon  earth,  shall  be 
loosed  also  in  heaven."  \ 

When  Peter  and  John  were  brought  into  court 
and  "  charged  not  to  speak  at  all,  nor  teach  in  the 
name   of  Jesus,"  they  should    have  submitted    at 

♦  The  British  Quarterly^  January,  1875,  p.  17. 
t  Luke  X.  16.  J  Matthew  xviii.  17,  i8. 


254  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

once,  upon  the  theory  that  the  state  has  the  right 
to  exact  supreme  and  undivided  allegiance  ;  but 
they  appealed  to  their  divine  commission,  just  as 
the  bishops  of  Germany  do  to- day,  and  answered, 
"  We  cannot  but  speak  the  things  which  we  have 
seen  and  heard."  * 

And  in  the  council  at  Jerusalem,  "  an  ecclesias- 
tical corporation  "  surely,  the  apostles  say :  '*  For 
it  hath  seemed  good  to.  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to 
us,  to  lay  no  further  burden  upon  you  than  these 
necessary  things"  ;t  plainly  indicating  and  using 
their  right  to  impose  commands  and  exact  obedience. 
But  enough  of  this.  The  persecutors  of  the  church 
to-day  are  not  at  all  concerned  about  the  teachings 
of  the  New  Testament.  The  attempt,  however,  to 
make  it  appear  that  only  Catholics  protest  against 
the  doctrine  of  absolute  and  undivided  allegiance 
to  the  state  is  wholly  unjustifiable.  There  is  no 
Protestant  sect  in  England  or  the  United  States 
which  would  submit  to  the  intervention  of  the 
government  in  its  spiritual  life  and  internal  disci- 
pline. Would  the  Methodists,  or  the  Baptists,  or 
the  Presbyterians  permit  the  state  to  decide  what 
kind  of  education  their  ministers  are  to  receive,  or 
to  determine  whether  they  are  capable  of  properly 
discharging  their  spiritual  duties,  or  to  keep  in 
office  by  force  those  whom  the  church  had  cast  off? 
They  would  go  out  to  pray  on  the  hillside  and  by 
the  ri^/'er-banks  t'ather  than  submit  to  such  tyranny. 

Is  not  the  right  of  revolution,  which  in  our  day, 
especially  outside  of  the  Catholic  Church,  is  held 

*  Acts  Iv   20.  t  Acts  XV.  a8. 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  255 

to  be  divine,  based  upon  the  principle  of  divided 
allegiance?  Practically  it  is  impossible  to  distin- 
guish between  loyalty  to  the  government  and  loy- 
alty to  the  state  ;  and  no  man  in  this  age  thinks 
of  questioning  the  right  of  rebellion  against  a 
tyrannical  government.  This  divided  allegiance 
marks  the  radical  difference  between  Christian  and 
pagan  civilization.  .Before  Christ  there  was  no 
divided  allegiance,  because  the  individual  was 
absorbed  by  the  state,  and  nothing  could  have 
wrested  mankind  from  this  bondage  but  a  great 
spiritual  organization  such  as  the  Catholic  Church  ; 
and  this,  we  believe,  is  generally  admitted  by  our 
adversaries.  They  fail  to  perceive,  however,  that 
there  is  no  other  institution  than  the  Catholic 
Church  which  has  the  power  to  prevent  the  state 
from  again  absorbing  the  individual  and  destroying 
all  civil  and  political  liberty.  If  the  church  could 
be  broken  up  into  national  establishments,  and  the 
entire  control  of  education  handed  over  to  the 
state,  the  bringing  all  men  to  the  servile  temper 
which  characterizes  the  Russians  and  Protestant 
Prussians  would  be  only  a  question  of  time.  Many 
will  be  inclined  to  hold  that  the  general  freedom, 
and  even  license,  of  thought  of  our  time  would  be 
a  sufficient  protection  against  any  such  danger. 

A  little  reflection,  however,  will  suffice  to  dispel 
this  illusion.  No  number  of  individuals,  unless 
they  are  organized,  can  successfully  oppose  tyr- 
anny ;  and  mere  speculations  or  opinions  as  to 
the  abstract  right  of  resistance  cannot  stop  the 
march  of  the  state   toward  absolutism.     The  most 


256  Prussia  a)id  the  ClnircJi. 

despotic  states  have  often  encouraged  the  most 
unbounded  freedom  of  thought,  and  Ave  need  not 
go  beyond  Prussia  for  an  example.  In  no  country 
in  the  world  has  there  been  more  of  what  is  called 
free-thinking,  nor  has  any  government  been  more 
tolerant  of  wild  theories  and  extravagant  specula- 
tions ;  and  yet  the  free-thinkers  and  ilhnninati  have 
done  nothing  to  promote  the  "growth  of  free  insti- 
tutions or  to  encourage  civil  or  religious  liberty. 
They  are  without  unity  or  organization  or  pro- 
gramme. Many  of  them  to-day  are  the  strongest 
supporters  of  Bismarckian  despotism.  Even  in 
1848  they  succeeded  only  in  getting  up  a  mob 
and  evaporated  in  wild  talk. 

The  divine  right  of  resistance  to  tyranny  would 
have  no  sanction  or  efficacy  if  it  were  not  kept  liv- 
ing in  the  hearts  of  men  by  supernatural  religion. 

This  is  thoroughly  understood  by  the  advocates 
of  absolutism,  Avho  do  not  trouble  themselves  about 
doctrines  of  any  kind,  except  when  they  are  up- 
held by  organizations,  and  for  this  reason  all  their 
efforts  are  directed  to  the  destruction  of  the  organ- 
ic unity  of  the  church.  Had  Prince  Bismarck  suc- 
ceeded in  his  attempt  to  get  the  Catholic  congre- 
gations which  have  been  deprived  of  their  priests 
to  elect  pastors  for  themselves,  there  would  have 
been  but  another  step  to  open  schism,  which 
would  have  inevitably  resulted  in  favor  of  Old 
Catholicism.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  out  of  more 
than  a  hundred  parishes,  not  one  has  lent  itself 
to  the  iniquitous  designs  of  the  enemies  of  the 
church. 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  257 

Another  striking  example  of  the  perfect  unanim- 
ity of  thouglit  and  action  which  in  Prussia  exists 
between  priests  and  people  was  given  last  year 
when  the  so-called  State-Catholics  tried  to  get  up 
a  protest  against  the  encyclical  letter  of  the  Pope, 
in  which  he  declared  that  the  May  Laws  were  not 
binding  upon  the  consciences  of  Catholics.  All 
the  liberal  papers  of  Germany  were  loud  in  praise 
of  this  project,  which  presented  the  fairest  oppor- 
tunity to  Catholic  government  officials  to  curry 
favor  by  showing  their  acceptance  of  the  Falk 
laws ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  every  effort  that  was 
made,  only  about  a  thousancl  signatures  were  ob- 
tained, most  of  which  were  found  outside  of  the 
eight  millions  of  Prussian  Catholics. 

Mr.  Gladstone,  in  his  article  on  the  "  Speeches 
of  Pope  Pius  IX.,"*  says  of  the  Catholic  clergy 
that  they  "are  more  and  more  an  army,  a  police, 
a  caste  ;  further  and  further  from  the  Christian 
Commons,  but  nearer  to  one  another  and  in 
closer  subservience  to  the  pope."  However  near 
the  Catholic  clergy  may  be  to  one  another,  it 
certainly  shows  a  great  lack  of  power  to  see 
things  as  they  are  to  maintain  that  they  are  los- 
ing the  hold  which  more  than  any  other  class  of 
men  they  have  always  had  on  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  The  persecution  in  Germany  has  shown 
there  that  inseparable  union  of  priest  and  people 
which  is  to-day  as  universal  as  the  life  of  the 
church.     Had  there  existed  any  seed  of  discord,  it 

*  The  London  Quarterly  Review,  January,  1873,  p.  160. 


258  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

certainly  would    have  sprung  up  and  flourished  in 
Prussia  during  the  last  four  or  five  years. 

What  circumstances  could  have  been  more  fa- 
vorable to  such  development  than  those  created 
by  the  Old  Catholics  in  league  with  Bismarck? 
The  unprecedented  victories  over  Austria  and 
France  had  set  all  Germany  wild  with  enthusiasm. 
"  Deutschland  iiber  alles,  iiber  alles  in  der  Welt," 
was  the  refrain  of  every  song.  On  the  other 
hand,  many  Catholics,  especially  in  Germany,  had 
been  prejudiced  and  somewhat  soured  by  the  false 
interpretations  which  were  everywhere  put  on  the 
dogma  of  papal  infallibility.  Just  at  this  moment 
Dr.  Dollinger,  whose  reputation  was  greater  than 
that  of  any  other  German  theologian,  announced 
his  separation  from  the  church,  and  at  once  there 
gathered  around  him  a  party  of  dissatisfied  or  sus- 
pended priests  and  rationalistic  laymen.  Reinkens 
was  made  bishop,  and  the  Emperor  of  Germany 
publicly  prayed  that  the  "  certainly  correct  convic- 
tion of  the  HocJnviirdiger  Herr  Bischof  might  win 
ground  more  and  more."  Fortune  smiled  upon 
the  new  religion  and  everything  seemed  to  promise 
it  the  brightest  future.  What  has  been  the  result? 
In  a  population  of  eight  millions  of  Catholics  this 
sect,  with  the  aid  of  the  state,  German  enthusi- 
asm, and  the  whole  liberal  press,  has  been  able  to 
gather  only  about  six  thousand  adherents ;  and 
they  are  without  zeal,  without  doctrinal  or  moral 
unity,  having  as  yet  not  even  dared  to  define  their 
position  towards  the  Pope.  Dr.  Dollinger  himself 
has  lost  interest   in   the   movement,  and    its   most 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  259 

sanguine  friends  have  yielded  to  despondency. 
Old  Catholicism  was,  in  fact,  impossible  from  the 
beginning.  But  two  roads  open  before  those  who 
to-day  go  forth  from  the  fold  of  the  church  ;  the 
one  leads  to  the  Babel  and  decomposition  of  Pro- 
testant sectarianism,  the  other  to  the  unbelief  of 
scientific  naturalism. 

To  declare  that  Christianity  is  lying  disjointed, 
in  shattered  fragments,  and  yet  to  pretend  that  hu- 
man hands,  with  paste  and  glue,  out  of  these  bro- 
ken pieces  can  remake  the  heavenly  vase  once  fill- 
ed with  God's  spirit  of  faith,  hope,  and  love,  is  an 
idle  fancy.  Into  this  patchwork  no  divine  life  will 
come  ;  men  will  not  believe  in  it,  nor  will  it  inspire 
enthusiasm  or  the  heroic  courage  of  martyrdom. 
Therefore  they  who  leave  the  church,  their  native 
soil,  have  indeed  all  the  world  before  them,  and  yet 
no  place  where  they  can  find  rest  for  their  souls. 

What  the  religious  policy  of  the  Prussian  Liber- 
als is,  Herr  von  Kirchmann,  to  whom  in  a  previous 
article  we  introduced  our  readers,  informs  us  in 
the  following  words  : 

'.*  The  majority  of  the  Liberal  representatives  are 
highly-educated  men  who  have  fallen  out  with  the 
Christian  churches,  because  they  no  longer  accept 
their  creed,  and  therefore  hold  as  a  principle  that 
freedom  of  conscience  for  the  individual  is  abun- 
dantly sufficient  to  satisfy  the  religious  wants  of 
the  people.  At  best,  they  would  consent  to  the  ex- 
istence of  congregations ;  any  organization  beyond 
this  they  consider  not  only  unnecessary  but  hurt- 
ful." 


26o  PrtirSsia  and  the  Chttrch. 

This,  then,  is  the  Liberal  programme  :  the  indi- 
vidual shall  have  perfect  freedom  to  believe,  as  he 
pleases,  in  God  or  the  devil ;  but  there  shall  be  no 
ecclesiastical  organization,  unless  a  kind  of  Con- 
gregationalism, which,  having  neither  unity  nor 
strength,  can  be  easily  rendered  harmless  by  being 
placed  under  police  supervision.  These  men  of 
culture,  as  Herr  von  Kirchmann  says,  have  fallen 
out  with  all  the  churches ;  and  they  are  liberal 
enough  to  be  willing  to  do  everything  in  their 
power  to  make  it  impossible  that  any  of  them 
shall  exist  at  all,  since  without  organic  unity  of 
some  kind  there  can  be  no  church,  as  there  can  be 
no  state. 

But  let  us  hear  what  Herr  von  Kirchmann  has 
to  remark  upon  this  subject. 

"  This  view,"  he  says,  "  may  satisfy  those  who 
have  reached  the  high  degree  of  culture  of  the 
Liberals  ;  but  those  who  take  it,  utterly  ignore  the 
religious  wants  of  the  middle  and  lower  classes, 
and  fail  to  perceive  the  yearning,  inseparable  from 
all  religious  feeling,  for  association  with  persons 
of  like  sentiments,  in  order,  through  public  wor- 
ship, to  obtain  the  strength  and  contentment  after 
which  this  fundamental  craving  of  the  human  heart 
longs." 

To  the  existence  of  this  feeling,  and  its  yearn- 
ing for  the  largest  possible  association,  the  history 
of  all  Christian  peoples,  down  even  to  the  present 
day,  bears  witness  ;  for  this  reason  nowhere  have 
men  been  satisfied  with  the  freedom  of  the  indi- 
vidual,   but   have    ever   demanded    a   church    with 


Prussia  and  the  Ch u rch .  '261 

acknowledged  rights  and  the  privilege  of   free  in- 
tercommunion. 

"  To  the  dangers  which  would  threaten  society 
if  religious  associations  should  be  broken  up,  and 
faith  left  to  the  whim  of  individuals,  these  highly- 
cultivated  men  give  no  heed,  because  they  do  not 
themselves  feel  the  need  of  such  support ;  but 
they  forget  that  their  security,  the  very  possibility, 
indeed,  of  reaching  the  point  at  which  they  stand, 
rests  upon  the  power  of  the  church  over  the 
masses  ;  and  should  they  destroy  this  by  allowing 
the  congregations  to  break  up  into  atoms,  leaving 
the  Christian  creed  to  be  fashioned  by  passion 
and  ever-varying  interests,  according  to  the  fancy 
of  each  and  every  one,  nothing  would  remain  but 
the  brute  force  of  the  state,  which,  without  the 
aid  of  the  internal  dispositions  of  the  people, 
cannot  save  society  from  complete  dissolution."  * 

Herr  von  Kirchmann,  then,  adds  his  testimony 
to  that  of  many  other  observers  who,  though  they 
do  not  believe  in  the  divine  origin  and  truth  of 
the  Christian  religion,  yet  hold  that  its  acceptance 
by  the  masses  as  a  system  of  belief,  received  on 
the  authority  of  a  church,  is  essential  to  the 
preservation  and  permanence  of  our  civilization. 
This  is  a  subject  to  which  we  Americans  might 
with  great  profit  give  our  thoughts. 

As  Emerson,  who  is  probably  our  most  charac- 
teristic thinker,  has  declared  that  he  would  write 
over  the  portal  of  the  Temple  of  Philosophy 
WHIM,  American  Protestantism  seems  more  and 

*  Der  Cuiiurkaiir^f,  ?  28,  jj. 


262  Prussia  and  ike  Church. 

more  inclined  to  accept  this  as  the  only  satisfac- 
tory, or  indeed  possible,  shibboleth  in  religion. 
The  multiplication  of  sects  holding  conflicting 
creeds,  while  it  has  weakened  faith  in  all  religious 
doctrines,  has  helped  on  the  natural  tendency  of 
Protestantism  to  throw  men  back  upon  their  own 
feelings  or  fancies  for  their  faith.  This,  of  course, 
results  in  the  breaking  up  even  of  congregations 
into  atoms  of  individualism,  and  will,  if  not  coun- 
teracted, necessarily  destroy  our  character  as  a 
Christian  people ;  and  for  us  it  is  needless  to  say 
Christianity  is  the  only  possible  religion. 

Our  statesmen — politicians  may  be  the  more 
proper  word — though  not  irreligious,  lack  grasp 
of  mind  and  depth  of  view,  else  they  could  not 
fail  to  perceive,  however  little  they  may  sympa- 
thize with  the  doctrines  or  what  they  conceive  to 
be  the  social  tendencies  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
that  just  such  a  strong  and  conservative  Christian 
organism  as  she  is,  is  for  us  an  indispensable  po- 
litical requirement.  That  none  of  the  leading 
minds  of  the  country  should  have  taken  this  view 
is  a  sad  evidence  of  want  of  intellectual  power  or 
of  moral  courage.  The  most  that  any  of  them 
feel  authorized  in  saying  in  our  favor  is  that  a 
country  which  tolerates  free-love,  Mormonism,  and 
the  joss-house  of  the  Chinaman  ought  not,  if  con- 
sistency be  a  virtue,  to  persecute  Catholics.  In 
spite  of  appearances  which  mislead  superficial 
observers,  we  are  the  most  secular  people  in  the 
world.  No  other  people  is  so  ready  to  sacrifice 
religious  to  material  interests  ;  no  other  people  has 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  263 

ever  to  an  equal  extent  banished  all  religious  in- 
struction from  its  national  education  ;  no  other 
people  has  ever  taken  such  a  worldly  view  of  its 
religion.  The  supernatural  in  religion  is  lost  sight 
of  by  us,  and  we  value  it  chiefly  for  its  social  and 
aesthetic  power.  The  popular  creed  is  that  reli- 
gion is  something  which  favors  republicanism,  pro- 
motes the  exploitation  of  the  material  resources 
of  the  globe,  softens  manners,  and  makes  life 
comfortable. 

The  proposition  to  tax  church  property  shows 
that  a  large  portion  of  the  American  people  have 
ceased  to  believe  in  religion  as  a  moral  and  social 
power.  A  church  is  like  a  bank  or  theatre  or  coal- 
mine— something  which  concerns  only  those  who 
have  stock  in  it,  and  has  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  public  welfare.  The  school-house  occu- 
pies quite  other  ground.  The  country  is  interest- 
ed in  having  all  its  citizens  intelligent ;  this  is  for 
the  general  good  ;  but  whether  they  believe  in  God 
or  the  soul  is  a  matter  of  profound  indifference, 
unless,  possibly,  to  themselves,  since  this  can  in 
no  way  affect  the  progress  or  civilization  of  the 
American  people.  This  is  evidently  the  only  pos- 
sible philosophy  for  those  who  would  tax  church 
property.  The  popular  contempt  for  theology  en- 
couraged by  nearly  all  Protestant  ministers  is  an- 
other evidence  of  the  tendency  to  religious  disin- 
tegration. There  is  but  little  danger  that  any 
church  will  ever  get  a  controlling  influence  in  the 
national  life  of  this  country  ;  our  peril  lies  in  the 
opposite  direction;  and  that  so  few  of  those  who 


264  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

think  should  see  this  is  to  us  the  saddest  sign  of 
the  times  ;  but  those  who  do  recognize  it  cannot 
help  knowing  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  the 
strongest  bulwark  against  this  flood-tide. 

The  social  dangers  of  an  open  persecution  of  the 
Catholic  Church  are  most  clearly  seen  in  Prussia 
to-day.  Since  the  German  chancellor  entered  up- 
on his  present  course  of  violence  five  bishops  and 
fifteen  thousand  priests  have  been  imprisoned  or 
fined,  and  about  the  same  number  of  laymen  have 
suffered  for  daring  to  speak  unfavorably  of  these 
proceedings.  Never  before,  probably,  have  the 
police  been  so  generally  or  constantly  employed  in 
arresting  men  who  are  loved  and  venerated  by  the 
people,  and  whose  only  crime  is  fidelity  to  con- 
science. The  inevitable  consequence  of  this  is 
that  the  officers  of  the  government  come  to  be 
looked  upon,  not  as  the  ministers  of  justice,  but  as 
the  agents  of  tyranny  and  oppression,  which  must, 
of  course,  weaken  respect  for  authority.  These 
coercive  measures,  from  the  nature  of  things, 
tend  only  to  confirm  the  Catholics  in  their  consci- 
entious convictions,  and  the  government  is  there- 
by instigated  to  harsher  methods  of  dealing  with 
this  passive  resistance.  The  number  of  confes- 
sors of  the  faith  increases,  the  enthusiasm  and  de- 
votion of  the  people  are  heightened,  and  it  be- 
comes an  honor  and  a  glory  to  be  made  a  victim 
of  tyranny.  The  feeling  of  disgrace  which  is  at- 
tached to  the  penalties  for  violation  of  law  is  more 
efficacious  in  repressing  crime  than  the  suffering 
which  is  inflicted  ;  but  this  feeling  is  destroyed,  or 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  265 

rather  changed,  into  one  of  an  opposite  character 
in  the  minds  of  the  people  when  they  behold  their 
venerated  bishops  and  much-loved  priests  dragged 
to  prison  for  saying  Mass  or  administering  the  sac- 
raments. No  amount  of  reasoning,  no  refinement 
of  logic,  can  ever  convince  them  that  there  can  be 
anything  criminal  in  the  performance  of  these  sa- 
cred functions.  In  this  way  the  ignominy  which 
in  the  public  mind  follows  conviction  for  crime  is 
wiped  away,  and  the  sacredness  of  the  law  itself 
endangered. 

This  alone  is  sufficient  to  show  how  blind  and 
thoughtless  Prince  Bismarck  has  been  in  making 
war  upon  the  Catholic  Church  just  at  the  moment 
when  wise  counsels  would  have  led  him  to  seek  to 
add  the  strength  of  reverence  and  respect  to  the 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  creation  of  the  new 
empire  had  been  hailed.  The  spoilt  child  of  suc- 
cess, wounded  pride  made  him  mad.  How  ser- 
viceable he  might  have  found  the  moral  support 
of  the  Catholic  clergy  Herr  von  Kirchmann  has 
informed  him. 

"I  myself,"  he  says,  "from  1849  ^^  1866,  with 
the  exception  of  some  intervals,  lived  in  Upper 
Silefiia,  a  wholly  Catholic  province,  and,  as  the 
president  of  the  Criminal  Senate  of  a  Court  of 
Appeals,  had  the  fullest  opportunity  to  study  the 
moral  and  religious  state  of  the  people,  which  in 
nothing  is  so  truly  seen  as  in  those  circumstances 
out  of  which  spring  offences  against  the  law.  Now, 
although  this  province  of  more  than  a  million  of 
men  was  thoroughly  Catholic  and   entirely  in   the 


266  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

hands  of  the  clergy  ;   although   the  school  system 
was   still  very  imperfect,  and  the  population,  with 
the  exception  of  the  land-owners  and  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  large  cities,  not  speaking  the  German 
language,  was  thereby  deprived  of  culture  and   of 
intercourse  with  the  German   provinces,  yet  can  I 
unhesitatingly  affirm   that  the   moral  condition  of 
the  people  was  in  no  way  worse  than  in  Saxony  or 
the  Margravate  where  formerly  I  held  similar  offi- 
cial positions.     The  number  of  crimes  was  rather 
less,  the  security  of  person  and  of  property  greater, 
and   the   relations   between  the  different  classes  of 
society  far  more  peaceable  and  friendly  than  in  the 
provinces    to   which    I    have    just    made    allusion. 
The   socage  and   heavy  taxes   pressed    hard    upon 
the  peasantry;   nevertheless  in    1848  insurrections 
against  the  landlords  were  not  more  frequent  here 
than  elsewhere.     It   was   unquestionably  the  pow- 
erful influence  of  the   clergy  which,  in  spite  of  so 
many   obstacles,  gave    to    the    people  their  moral 
character,  and   produced  the  general  contentment 
and  obedience  which  reflected  the  greatest   honor 
upon  the  whole  population.     The  vice  of  drunk- 
enness,  through  the  agency  of  temperance  socie- 
ties established  solely  by  the  priests,  had  been  in 
an   almost    marvellous   manner    rooted    out    from 
among  the  people,  and  the  general  welfare  made 
manifest  progress.     By  means  of  my  official  and 
political   position    I  had  the  opportunity  to   make 
the  acquaintance  of  a  large  number  of  the  pastors 
and  curates,  and  still  to-day  I  recall  with  pleasure 
my  intercourse  with  these  men,  for  the  most  part 


^  Prussia  and  the  Church.  267 

cultivated,  but  above  all  distinguished  by  their 
thorough  gentleness  of  character.  They  were  firm 
in  maintaining  the  rights  of  their  church,  they  were 
filled  with  the  excellence  of  their  mission,  but  they 
never  thought  of  thwarting  the  civil  authorities ; 
on  the  contrary,  they  found  in  the  clergy  a  great 
and  efficacious  support,  so  that  this  province 
needed  fewer  protective  and  executive  officials 
than  others."  * 

No   enlightened   and   fair  government    has   any- 
thing to  fear  from  the  influence  of  men  who  are  as 
firm  in  upholding  the  authority  of  the  state  as  they 
are   in  asserting  their  own  liberty  of  conscience  ; 
who  will   neither  do  wrong  nor  tamely  submit   to 
it.     If,  in  the  social,  religious,  and  political  crisis 
through    which    the    nations   of    Christendom    are 
passing,  sound  reason  is  ultimately  to  prevail  and 
civilization  is  to  be  preserved,  the  necessity  of  an 
institution  like  the  Catholic  Church  will  come  to 
be  recognized  by  all  who  are   capable  of  serious 
thought.     The  divided  allegiance,  the  maintenance 
of  the  supremacy  of  conscience,  is  essential  to  the 
preservation  of  the  principle  of  authority  in  society. 
If  it  were  possible  to  nationalize  religion  by  plac- 
ing all  churches  under  state  control,  the  authority 
of  the  state  would  necessarily  become  that  of  brute 
force,  and  would  in  consequence  be  deprived  of  its 
sacredness.     The   respect   of  Christian  nations  for 
the  civil  power  is  a  religious  sentiment ;  and  if  the 
ch.urch  could  cease  to  be,  there  would  be  a  radical 
revolution  in  the  attitude  of  the  people  toward  the 

*  Cul(ur-kamf>/y  pp,  33,  34. 


268  Prussia  and  the  Church. 

state.  In  Europe  even  now,  in  consequence  of  the 
progress  of  unbelief,  respect  for  authority  and  the 
duty  of  obedience  has  been  so  far  destroyed  in 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  masses  that  govern- 
ment is  possible  only  with  the  support  of  immense 
standing  armies,  which  help  on  the  social  dissolu- 
tion ;  and  with  us  things  would  be  in  a  still  worse 
condition,  were  it  not  that  the  vast  undeveloped 
resources  of  the  country  draw  off  the  energies 
which  else  would  be  fatal  to  public  order.  Our 
strength  and  security  are  rather  in  our  physical 
surroundings  than  in  our  moral  character.  Our 
greatest  moral  force,  during  the  century  of  our 
existence,  has  been  the  universal  veneration  of  the 
people  for  the  Constitution,  which  was  regarded 
with  a  kind  of  religious  reverence  ;  but  this  ele- 
ment of  strength  is  fast  wasting  away  and  will  not 
pass  over  as  a  vital  power  into  the  second  century 
of  our  life.  The  criticisms,  the  amendments,  the 
patchings,  which  the  Constitution  has  been  made 
to  suffer,  have,  more  than  civil  strife,  debased  it 
to  the  common  level  of  profane  parchments  and 
robbed  it  of  the  consecration  which  it  had  received 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  The  change  which 
has  taken  place,  though  it  have  something  of  the 
nature  of  growth  and  development,  is  yet,  unques- 
tionably, more  a  breaking  down  and  dissevering. 
The  Catholic  Church,  by  the  reverence  which  she 
inspires  for  institutions,  is,  and  in  the  future  Avill 
be  yet  more,  the  powerful  ally  of  those  who  will 
stand  by  the  Constitution  as  our  fathers  made  it. 
Our   statesmen,  we    know,  are    in    the    habit   of 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  269 

looking  elsewhere  for  the  means  which  are  to  give 
permanence  to  our  free  institutions.  The  theory 
now  most  in  favor  is  that  universal  education  is  the 
surest  safeguard  of  liberty,  and  it  is  upon  this  more 
than  upon  anything  else  that  we,  as  a  people,  rely 
for  the  perpetuity  of  our  form  of  government. 
This  hope,  we  cannot  but  think,  is  based  upon  an 
erroneous  opinion  of  the  necessary  tendency  of  in- 
tellectual culture  ;  which  is  to  increase  the  spirit  of 
criticism,  and  consequently,  by  dissatisfying  the 
mind  with  what  is,  to  direct  it  continually  to  new 
experiments,  with  the  hope  of  finding  something 
better.  Now,  though  this  may  be  well  enough  in 
the  realms  of  speculation,  and  may  be  a  great  help 
to  the  progress  of  science,  it  most  assuredly  does 
not  tend  either  to  beget  or  to  foster  reverence  for 
existing  institutions  of  any  kind  ;  and  this  same 
mental  habit  which  has  already  made  American 
Protestantism  so  fragmentary  and  contradictory 
will  beyond  doubt  weaken  and,  unless  coun- 
teracted, destroy  the  unity  of  our  political  life. 
This  is  a  question  which  does  not  concern  us  alone; 
with  it  is  bound  up  the  future  of  the  human  race. 
If  the  American  experiment  of  government  by  the 
people  fails,  all  hope  of  such  government  perishes. 
If  we  allow  our  personal  prejudices  to  warp  our 
judgment  in  a  matter  so  catholic  and  all  important, 
no  further  evidence  of  our  unfitness  for  the  great 
mission  which  God  seems  to  have  assigned  us  is 
needed.  Unfortunately,  we  are  at  the  mercy  of 
politicians  for  whom  all  other  questions  than  the 
present  success  of  party  have  no  interest,  and  who 


270  Prussia  and  the  Ckurc/t. 

therefore  flatter  the  passions  of  the  people  instead 
of  seeking  to  enlighten  them ;  and  the  insane  ha- 
tred and  fear  of  the  church  which  the  Protestant 
masses  have  inherited  from  the  Old  World  prevents 
them  from  seeing  what  a  source  of  strength  and 
bond  of  union  is  her  strong  and  firmly-knit  organ- 
ism in  a  social  state  like  ours,  in  which  there  are 
so  many  elements  of  dissolution  and  disintegration. 

Herr  von  Kirchmann,  though,  as  we  have  seen, 
not  a  Catholic  nor  a  Christian,  is  yet  too  profound 
a  statesman  not  to  recognize  the  supreme  social 
importance  of  the  church  to  the  modern  world. 

"  Human  society,"  he  says,  "  cannot  do  without 
the  principle  of  authority,  of  obedience,  of  respect 
for  law,  any  more  than  it  can  do  without  the  prin- 
ciple of  individual  freedom  ;  and  now  that  the 
family  has  been  shoved  into  the  background,  there 
remains  to  uphold  this  principle  of  authority  only 
one  great  institution,  and  that  is  the  Christian 
churches,  and,  above  all,  the  Catholic  Church. 

"  The  Reformation  has  so  filled  the  Evangelical 
Church  with  the  principle  of  self-examination  and 
self-determination  that  she  cannot  at  all  take  upon 
herself  the  mission  of  protectress  of  authority,  of 
respect  for  law,  as  law ;  which  is  essential  to  mo- 
dern society.  She  is  also  too  far  removed  from 
the  laity,  and  lacks  those  special  institutions  which 
would  enable  her  energetically  to  uphold  this 
principle. 

"The  same  is  true  of  all  reform  parties  within 
the  church,  and  must  be  applied  to  the  Old 
Catholics,    should   they   succeed    in   acquiring  any 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  2  7 1 

importance.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  alone 
must  be  considered  the  true  mother  of  respect  for 
authority.  She  does  not  permit  the  individual 
to  decide  in  matters  of  faith  and  discipline ;  and 
she  most  perfectly  realizes  the  essence  of  religion, 
which  cannot  proceed  from  the  individual,  but 
must  have  its  source  in  the  commandments  of 
God.  In  the  bishops,  in  the  councils,  in  the  pope, 
the  individual  finds  authorities  who  announce  to 
him  religious  truth,  and  by  the  administration  of 
the  sacraments  bring  him  nearer  to  God.  Changes 
in  faith  and  worship  which,  with  the  progress  of 
science  and  of  general  culture,  become  necessary, 
are  here  withdrawn  from  the  disputes  of  the  learn- 
ed and  the  criticism  of  individuals ;  in  the  councils 
and  in  their  head,  the  pope,  an  institution  is  found 
by  which  modifications  may  be  permitted  without 
shaking  faith  in  the  teachings  of  the  church. 

"  In  the  position  of  the  priest  toward  the  laity 
this  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  church  be- 
comes most  intimate,  and  numerous  special  ordi- 
nances cultivate  the  spirit  of  obedience  and  respect 
for  the  commands  of  ecclesiastical  superiors,  while 
they  also  serve  the  ends  of  Christian  charity  and 
benevolence.  It  ought  not,  indeed,  to  be  denied 
that  this  repression  of  individual  self-determination 
and  this  fostering  of  obedience  may  be  carried  too 
far,  and  to  some  extent  has,  in  the  Catholic  Church, 
been  exaggerated,  as  in  civil  society  the  cultiva- 
tion of  individual  freedom  and  the  repression  of 
authority  have  produced  an  opposite  excess  ;  but 
precisely  through  the  interaction  of  these  extremes 


2  7  2 


Prussia  and  the  Church. 


will  the  true  mean  be  obtained  ;  and  therefore 
ought  the  state  to  seek  in  the  Catholic  Church 
that  powerful  institution  which  alone,  by  virtue 
of  her  whole  organization,  is  able  to  ward  off  the 
dangers  which  threaten  society  from  the  exaggera- 
tion of  the  principle  of  individual  freedom.  But 
to  do  this  the  church  must  be  left  in  the  posses- 
sion of  her  constitution  as  it  has  hitherto  existed, 
and  the  state,  consequently,  should  not  interfere 
with. her  external  power  any  further  than  its  own 
existence  demands.  In  this  respect  the  principle 
of  individual  freedom  which  pervades  all  modern 
life  is  so  powerful  an  auxiliaiy  of  the  state  that  no 
fear  of  the  influence  of  the  church  need  be  felt, 
of  which  too  much  is  far  less  dangerous  to  society 
than  too  little. 

'•  These  are  considerations,  indeed,  which  are 
not  in  harmony  with  the  programme  of  modern 
liberalism,  and  will  therefore  have  but  little  weight 
with  those  who  swim  with  the  current  of  the  time  ; 
"nevertheless,  if  we  look  around  us,  we  perceive 
many  evidences  of  the  instinctive  feeling  of  human 
society  that  in  the  Catholic  Church  may  be  found 
a  protection  for  the  harmony  of  social  life  which 
now  no  longer  exists  elsewhere.  Only  in  this  way 
can  we  explain  the  rapid  growth  of  the  Catholic 
Church  in  her  strictly  hierarchical  constitution  in 
America,  and  the  increasing  Catholic  movement 
in  England,  together  with  the  efforts  of  the  Es- 
tablished Church  to  draw  nearer  to  the  Catholic; 
and  this  tendency  would  be  far  more  pronounced 
had   it   not   to   contend   acainst   historical    reminis- 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  273 

cences,  Avhicli  in  England  are  more  vivid  than 
elsewhere.  Similar  reasons  influence  the  govern- 
ment of  France  to  seek  rather  to  strengthen  than 
to  weaken  the  power  of  the  church  ;  and  in  this 
matter  the  unbelieving  Thiers  has  not  acted  other- 
wise than  the  religious  MacMahon. 

"  After  the  principle  of  authority  had  been  sha- 
ken by  revolutions  and  an  unhappy  war  in  France 
more  than  in  any  other  country,  the  people  knew 
not  where  to  seek  help,  except  in  the  fostering  of 
religion  and  the  support  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
Like  grounds  prevent  Italy  and  Austria  from  com- 
ing to  an  open  rupture  with  the  church  ;  they  pre- 
fer to  yield  somewhat  in  the  execution  of  the  laws 
rather  than  suffer  themselves  to  be  deprived  of  her 
indispensable  aid.  Similar  tendencies  exist  in  the 
other  German  governments,  and  also  among  the 
rich  and  powerful  families  of  Germany  and  Prussia. 
Everywhere,  even  where  these  families  are  not  ad- 
herents of  the  Catholic  faith,  they  feel  that  this 
church  is  a  fortress  against  the  anarchy  of  individu- 
al freedom,  which  should  be  defended  and  not  de- 
stroyed. The  members  of  these  families  are  not 
blind  to  the  defects  of  the  church ;  but  they  know 
that  in  the  present  age  these  are  the  least  to  be 
feared,  while  her  power  against  the  self-exaltation 
of  the  individual  is  indispensable  to  modern  soci- 
ety. It  is  altogether  a  mistake  to  attribute  this 
bearing  of  the  wealthy  classes  of  all  civilized  na- 
tions toward  the  church  to  selfish  motives  or  to  the 
cunning  of  priests;  these  motives  may,  as  in  all 
great  things,  slip  in  in  isolated  cases  ;  but  this  whole 


2/4  Prussia  and  the  Church, 

movement  in  Europe  and  America  springs  from 
deeper  causes — from  causes  which  lie  at  the  very 
root  of  our  common  nature,  which  can  neither 
suffer  the  loss  of  freedom  nor  yet  do  without  order 
and  authority. 

"  About  every  ten  years  Ave  are  assured  that  if  only 
this  or  that  point  is  reached,  the  Catholic  Church  will 
of  herself  fall  to  pieces.  Never  has  the  attempt  to 
bring  about  this  consummation  been  made  with 
more  spirit  and  energy  than  in  the  literature  and 
political  constitutions  of  the  last  century ;  and  yet 
this  church  lives  still  in  our  day,  and  what  she  has 
lost  in  temporal  sovereignty  is  doubly  and  trebly 
made  up  to  her  in  the  growing  number  of  her  chil- 
dren and  the  gradually-increasing  insight  into  the 
significance  of  her  mission  for  human  society. 

"  P'or  this  reason  the  present  conflict  with  the 
church  in  Prussia  ought  not  to  be  pushed  so  far  as 
to  bring  her  power  as  low  as  the  state  has  brought 
that  of  the  Evangelical  Church.  If  the  Catholic 
Church  is  to  fulfil  the  great  social  mission  which 
we  have  just  described,  and  which  consists  essen- 
tially in  her  maintaining  an  equilibrium  between 
freedom  and  obedience,  which  is  indispensable  to 
society  and  the  state,  her  external  power  and  in- 
ternal organization  must  not  be  interfered  with  in  a 
way  to  render  the  accomplishment  of  this  exalted 
mission  impossible."  * 

Herr  Joerg,  the  editor  of  one  of  the  first  re- 
views of  Germany,  has  said  that   Prince  Bismarck 

♦  CuHurkaiupf,  pp.  44-47. 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  275 

has  done  more  to  strengthen  and  make  popular  the 
Catholic  cause  in  the  empire  than  the  two  hundred 
Jesuits  whom  he  has  exiled   could   have  done    in 
half  a  century.     This,  we  believe,  is  coming  to  be 
generally  recognized.     The  war  on  the  church  was 
begun  with  loud  boastings.     Men  of  high  position 
declared  that  in  two  years  not  a  Catholic  would  be 
left  in  Germany.     The  prince  chancellor  disdained 
to  treat  with  the  Pope  or  the  bishops,  and  defiant- 
ly entered  upon  his  course   of  draconic  legislation 
to  compel  to  his  stubborn  will  the  consciences  of 
eight  millions  of  Prussian  subjects.     He  is  not  able 
to  conceal  his  disappointment.     With  glory  enough 
to  satisfy  the    most  ambitious  he    could    not  rest 
content,    but    must    court   defeat.      All   his   hopes 
have  fallen  to  the  ground.     The  Old  Catholics  who 
were  to  have  been  his  most  powerful  allies  have 
sunk   into    the  oblivion  of  contempt ;    the  priests 
whom   he  expected  to  throw  off  the  authority  of 
their  bishops  have  not   been   found  ;  the  uprising 
of  the  laity  against  their   pastors   has    not   taken 
place  ;  the  bishop  who  was  to  have  put  himself  at 
the  head  of  a   German  Catholic  Church  has    not 
appeared  ;  the  Falk  laws  have  not  served  the  pur- 
pose  for  which   they  were  enacted,  nor  have   the 
numerous     supplementary    bills     met   with    better 
success.     He  has  indeed  made  his  victims  person- 
ally most  uncomfortable  ;    bishops  and    priests    he 
has  cast   into  dungeons,   monks  and  nuns  he  has 
driven  forth   from   their  homes  and  their  country 
to  beg  the  bread  of  exile;  laymen  he  has  sent  to 
jail  for  speaking  and  writing  the  truth;  but   with 


276  Prussia  and  the  CImrch. 

all  this  he  has  not  advanced  one  step  towards 
the  end  he  aims  at.  He  has  not  made  a  breach  in 
the  serried  Catholic  phalanx.  His  legislation  has 
nearly  doubled  the  number  of  Catholic  represen- 
tatives in  the  parliament  ;  it  has  given  new  life 
and  wider  influence  to  the  Catholic  press ;  it 
has  welded  the  union  of  bishops,  priests,  and  peo- 
ple, and  bound  all  closer  to  the  Pope.  From  their 
dungeons  the  bishops  and  priests  come  forth  and 
are  received  in  triumph  like  conquering  heroes ; 
imprisonments  and  fines  of  Catholic  editors  serve 
only  to  increase  the  circulation  of  their  journals. 
In  the  meantime  the  radicals  and  revolutionists  are 
gaining  strength,  crime  is  becoming  more  common, 
and  the  laws  aimed  at  the  church  are  beginning  to 
tell  upon  the  feebler  organizations  of  Protestan- 
tism. Since  the  law  on  civil  marriage  has  been 
passed  comparatively  few  contract  matrimony  in 
the  presence  of  Protestant  ministers  ;  great  num- 
bers refuse  to  have  their  children  baptized  or  to 
have  the  preachers  assist  at  the  burial  of  the  dead. 
The  government  has  become  alarmed,  and  quite 
recently  circulars  have  been  sent  to  the  officials 
charged  with  carrying  out  the  law  on  civil  mar- 
riage, in  which  they  are  instructed  to  inform  the 
contracting  parties  that  the  law  does  not  abrogate 
the  hitherto  existing  regulation  concerning  ecclesi- 
astical marriage,  and  that  they  are  still  bound  to 
present  themselves  before  the  clergyman  and  to 
have  their  children  baptized  as  formerly.  The 
service  of  the  police,  we  need  scarcely  say,  is  not 
required  to  induce  the  Catholics  to  seek  the  bless- 


Prussia  and  the  Church.  277 

ing  of  the  cliurch  upon  their  marriage  contracts  or 
to  have  their  children  baptized. 

The  result  of  all  this  is  that  many  wise  and  large- 
minded  men,  like  Von  Hoffmann,  Von  Gerlach, 
and  Von  Kirchmann,  have  lost  all  sympathy  with 
the  policy  of  Bismarck  towards  the  Catholic 
Church,  as  well  as  confidence  in  its  success.  They 
now  thoroughly  understand  that,  were  it  possible 
to  destroy  the  church,  this  would  be  an  irrepara- 
ble misfortune  for  the  Fatherland.  The  state  needs 
the  church  more  than  the  church  the  state.  She 
can  live  with  Hottentots  and  Esquimaux,  but  with- 
out her  neither  liberty  nor  culture  can  be  per- 
manent. It  must  also  be  humiliating  to  Prince 
Bismarck  to  see  with  what  little  success  those  who 
have  sought  to  ape  him  have  met.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
from  faith  in  the  chancellor,  thought  to  bolster  up 
a  falling  party  by  "expostulating"  with  the  Pope, 
and  he  has  succeeded  only  in  finding  himself  in 
the  company  of  Newdegate  and  Whalley.  Presi- 
dent Grant  has  been  made  to  believe  that  the  Pope 
is  such  a  monstrous  man  that  by  means  of  him 
even  a  third  term  might  become  possible  ;  and  he 
will  retire  to  the  obscurity  of  private  life  with  the 
stigma  of  having  sought  to  stir  up  religious  strife 
for  the  furtherance  of  his  own  private  interest. 


GERMAN  JOURNALISM.* 


HE  universal  hymn  of  journalistic  praise, 
sung  throughout  the  civih'zed  world 
with  hardly  a  discordant  note,  is  of 
itself  no  mean  evidence  of  the  power 
of  the  press.  "  Great  is  journalism,"  saysCarlyle. 
**  Is  not  every  able  editor  a  ruler  of  the  world,  be- 
ing a  persuader  of  it  ?"  From  France  M.  Thiers 
declares  that  the  liberty  of  the  press  is  theoreti- 
cally and  practically  the  most  necessary  of  all ;  and 
was  it  not  our  own  Jefferson  who  solemnly  affirmed 
that  he  would  rather  live  in  a  country  with  news- 
papers and  without  a  government  than  in  a  country 
with  a  government  but  without  newspapers?  And 
did  not  Napoleon  himself  stand  in  greater  awe  of  a 
newspaper  than  of  a  hundred  thousand  bayonets  ? 
"Give  me  but  the  liberty  of  the  press,"  cried 
Sheridan,  "  and  I  will  give  to  the  minister  a  venal 
House  of  Peers  ;  I  will  give  him  a  corrupt  and  ser- 
vile House  of  Commons  ;  I  will  give  him  the  full 
sway  of  the  patronage  of  office  ;  I  will  give  him  the 
whole  host  of  ministerial  influence  ;  I  will  give  him 
all  the   power  that  place  can  confer  upon  him  to 

♦  Die  deutsche  Zeitschri/ten  unddieEatstehungd^roffintlichen  Afeinun^. 
Ein  B;itrax zuf  Geschichte  des  Zeitungswesens.  Von  Heinrich  Wuttke. — The 
German  newspapers  and  the  origin  of  public  opinion  :  a  contribution  to  the  history 
of  journalism.     Leipzig;  1875. 


German  Journalism.  279 

purchase  up  submission  and  overcome  resistance  : 
and  yet,  armed  with  the  liberty  of  the  press,  I  will 
go  forth  to  meet  him  undismayed  ;  I  will  attack 
the  mighty  fabric  he  has  reared  with  that  mightier 
engine  ;  I  will  shake  down  from  its  height  corrup- 
tion and  bury  it  amidst  the  ruins  of  the  abuses  it 
was  meant  to  shelter." 

But  we  do  not  propose  to  treat  our  readers  to  a 
dissertation  written  in  the  style  of  him  who  de- 
clared that,  were  the  starry  heavens  deficient  of 
one  constellation,  the  vacuum  could  not  be  better 
supplied  than  by  the  introduction  of  a  printing- 
press.  We  fully  recognize,  however,  the  very 
great  power  of  the  press  which  controls  public 
opinion,  and  indeed  often  makes  it.  Nothing  is 
unimportant  which  throws  light  upon  the  constitu- 
tion and  workings  of  this  "  Fourth  Estate,"  into 
whose  hands  the  destinies  of  modern  nations  and 
civilization  seem  to  have  been  delivered  ;  and  it  is 
for  this  reason  that  we  take  pleasure  in  bringing 
to  the  notice  of  the  American  public  the  work  of 
Professor  Wuttke  on  German  Journalism  and  the 
Origin  of  Public  Opinion. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  curious  or  in- 
structive book.  For  years  connected  with  the  press, 
a  leader  of  the  "  great  German  party,"  and  the 
author  of  several  valuable  historical  and  philosophi- 
cal works,  Herr  Wuttke  has  brought  to  his  present 
task  the  thoroughgoing  and  painstaking  conscien- 
tiousness of  a  German  professor.  He  is  wholly  in 
earnest;  neither  smiles  nor  laughs;  does  not  even 
stop  to  give  smoothness  and  polish  to  his  phrase, 


28o  Ger7)iaii  Jotiriialism. 

but  without  remorse  or  fear  invades  the  editorial 
sanctum,  and  pours  upon  its  most  hidden  mysteries 
the  profane  h"ght  ;  holds  them  up  before  vulgar 
eyes,  and  leaves  not  the  suspicion  of  a  doubt  but 
that  he  is  resolved  to  tell  all  he  knows.  His  cour- 
age no  one  can  deny.  The  enterprise  to  which  he 
has  devoted  himself  was  full  of  perils,  none  of  which 
were  hidden  from  him. 

German  newspapers  before  the  revolution  of  1848 
were  chiefly  of  a  literary  character.  Their  columns 
were  filled  with  criticisms  of  books,  philosophical 
and  theological  discussions,  aesthetic  treatises,  ac- 
counts of  travel,  entertaining  stories,  and  theatrical 
notices.  Scarcely  any  attention  was  paid  to  events 
of  the  day,  and  least  of  all  to  those  of  a  political 
character.  The  explanation  of  this  anomaly  is 
simple.  The  governments  of  Germany  exercised  a 
rigorous  censorship  over  the  press,  and  allowed  no- 
thing to  be  published  which  might  set  people  to 
thinking  about  what  their  rulers  were  doing.  But 
the  storm  of  1848  blew  the  pen  from  the  hand  of 
the  official  censor,  and  opened  the  columns  of  the 
newspaper  to  all  kinds  of  political  theories  and  dis- 
cussions. The  governments  were  at  sea,  borne 
helpless  by  the  popular  wave  which  had  broken 
them  loose  from  their  ancient  moorings  and  was 
carrying  them  they  knew  not  whither.  Thefr  offi- 
cial organs,  with  unlimited  financial  support  from 
the  state,  were  powerless,  because  people  refused  to 
read  them  whilst  independent  journals  were  within 
their  reach.  But  this  revolutionary  outburst  was 
soon  followed  by  a  reaction,  partly  brought  on  by 


German  yoiirnalism.  281 

its  own  excesses  ;  and  with  the  aid  of  the  military 
the  former  governments  were  restored.  Restric- 
tions were  again  placed  upon  the  liberty  of  the 
press ;  but  so  universal  had  the  political  agitation 
been  that  to  think  of  carrying  through  a  policy  of 
rigorous  repression  was  manifestly  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. It  became  necessary,  therefore,  to  devise 
some  expedient  by  which  the  press  m.ight  be  con- 
trolled without  being  muzzled. 

With  this  view  Von  Manteuffel,  the  Prussian 
minister,  established  in  Berlin  a  "  Central  Bureau 
of  the  Press,"  which  stood  in  intimate  relations 
Avith  the  government  and  received  from  the  "  Secret 
Fund  "  a  yearly  support  of  from  forty  to  fifty  thou- 
sand thalers.  With  this  money  the  pens  of  a  crowd 
of  needy  scribes  were  bought,  who  for  twenty  or 
thirty  thalers  a  month  agreed  to  write  articles  in 
support  of  the  views  which  the  director  of  the 
Bureau  should  inspire.  The  next  step  was  to  make 
an  opening  for  these  articles  in  the  colurrflis  of  jour- 
nals in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom.  This  was 
not  difficult,  as  the  contributions  were  well  written, 
by  persons  evidently  thoroughly  informed,  and  were 
offered  at  a  nominal  price,  or  even  without  pay. 
On  the  9th  of  March,  1851,  the  director  of  the  Bu- 
reau sent  a  circular  to  "  those  editors  and  publish- 
ers of  the  conservative  party  with  whom  he  has  not 
at  present  the  honor  of  holding  personal  relations," 
in  which  he  promised,  with  special  reference  to  his 
connection  with  the  Ministry  of  State,  to  send  them 
from  time  to  time  communications  concerning  the 
real  condition  of  political  affairs,  in  order  to  furnish 


282  German  Journalism. 

them  indispensable  materials  for  the  successful 
prosecution  of  their  labors.  This  assistance  was  to 
be  given  free  of  cost,  and  many  editors  were  ea^^er 
to  avail  themselves  of  it  without  inquiring  with 
much  care  into  its  special  significance.  In  this  way 
the  "  Central  Press-Bureau  "  wove  a  net-work  of 
lines  of  communication  over  the  whole  kingdom, 
which,  however,  was  carefully  hidden  from  public 
view.  It  also  kept  up  constant  intercourse  with 
the  representatives  of  Prussia  at  the  various  Euro- 
pean courts,  which  enabled  it  to  give  tone  to  pub- 
lic opinion  on  foreign  affairs  as  well  as  on  matters 
at  home.  Through  the  influence  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  by  spending  money,  the  Bureau  gradu- 
ally succeeded  in  introducing  its  agents  into  the 
offices  of  many  newspapers,  and  occasionally  in 
getting  entire  control  of  this  or  that  journal.  By 
this  cunning  policy  the  Prussian  government  was 
able  to  lead  the  unsuspecting  public  by  the  nose. 

Whilst  confiding  readers  throughout  the  land 
were  receiving  the  views  of  their  favorite  journals 
as  the  honest  expression  of  public  opinion,  these 
newspapers  were  in  fact  only  the  whispering-galler- 
ies of  the  Berlin  ministry.  The  editors  themselves 
were  often  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  pens  of 
their  co-laborers  had  been  bought  and  sold.  Even 
foreign  journals,  in  England  and  France,  did  not 
escape  the  meshes  of  the  **  Press-Bureau,"  but  were 
entrapped  and  made  to  do  service  for  Prussia. 

Another  contrivance  for  working  up  public  opin- 
ion was  the  "  Lithographic  Correspondence-Bu- 
reau,"  which   is  a    French    invention.     This   is  an 


German  Journalism.  28 


0 


agency  for  the  manufacture  of  correspondence  from 
all  parts  of  the  world,  at  home  and  abroad,  which 
is  lithographed  and  sent  to  journals  that  are  willing 
to  pay  for  it  ;  and  nearly  all  of  them  find  this  the 
cheapest  and  easiest  method  of  keeping  abreast  of 
the  times. 

As  the  men  who  found  these  Bureaus  are  chiefly 
intent  upon  making  money,  and  live,  moreover,  in 
salutary  awe  of  the  government,  they  generally 
find  it  advisable  to  place  themselves  at  its  dispo- 
sition. The  correspondence-agency  of  Havas-Biil- 
lier  in  Paris  was  Orleanistic  under  Louis  Philippe, 
and  Napoleonic  under  the  Empire.  In  return  it 
obtained  the  monopoly  of  "  lithographic  corre- 
spondence" ;  so  that,  during  the  reign  of  Louis 
Napoleon,  France  received  its  knowledge  of  the 
foreign  world  through  the  single  channel  of  this 
Bureau,  which  was  carefully  supervised  by  the 
government.  This  was  too  excellent  a  device  not 
to  find  ready  acceptance  in  Berlin,  and  in  the  most 
natural  way  in  the  world  the  "  Lithographic  Cor- 
respondence-Bureau" was  placed  alongside  the 
"  Press-Bureau"  ;  the  journals  which  had  already 
fallen  under  the  influence  of  the  latter  yielded 
without  resistance  to  the  seductions  of  the  new 
ally,  and  thus  became  to  a  still  greater  extent  the 
tools  of  the  government.  In  this  way  the  "  eu- 
nuchs of  the  court  and  press"  were  in  position 
deliberately  and  with  malice  to  falsify  and  pervert 
public  opinion,  which  soon  came  to  mean  the 
utterances  of  the  herd  of  venal  scribes  in  Ber- 
lin  who  had    sold    themselves,  body   and    soul,  to 


284  Gemnan  Journalism. 

the  "  Press-Bureau."  One  of  the  five  sins  which, 
according  to  Confucius,  is  unpardonable,  is  from 
under  the  mantle  of  truth  to  scatter  broadcast  lies 
which  are  hurtful  to  the  people ;  and  this  is  the 
charge  which  Professor  Wuttke  brings  against  the 
crowd  of  German  newspaper-writers. 

Telegraphy,  which  was  first  introduced  into  Ger- 
many in  1849,  led  to  further  improvements  in  the 
art  of  manipulating  the  press.  The  "  Correspon- 
dence-Bureau "  of  Havas-BuUier  became  a  tele- 
graphic agency  and  furnished  despatches  free  of 
charge  to  the  Parisian  journals,  in  order  to  prevent 
the  starting  of  a  rival  business  ;  and  when,  notwith- 
standing, the  Agence  Continentale  was  organized,  it 
was  suppressed  by  Persigny,  the  Minister  of  State, 
who  by  this  means  was  enabled  to  control  the  pub- 
lication of  telegrams  in  all  the  leading  journals  of 
France.  In  Italy  the  Stefani  Agency,  at  Turin, 
rendered  similar  services  to  the  government  of 
Victor  Emanuel  ;  sending  out  the  most  shame- 
less falsehoods  to  the  four  corners  of  the  earth, 
and  carefully  suppressing  whatever  the  authorities 
wished  to  conceal  from  the  public.  These  de- 
spatches were  printed  in  the  leading  journals  of 
Europe  and  America  as  coming  from  unsuspected 
sources,  when  they  were  in  fact  the  "cooked  "  tele- 
grams of  the  secret  agents  of  Cavour  and  the  Revo- 
lution. 

In  1850  Reuter  established  his  telegraphic  Agen- 
cy in  Aix-la-Chapelle,  but  removed  it  in  the  follow- 
ing year  to  Berlin  ;  and  a  few  months  later,  when 
the  cable  between  Calais  and  Dover  was  laid,  he 


German  Journalism.  285 

made  London  the  central  point  of  his  operations. 
In  Berlin  a  similar  business  was  opened  by  Dr. 
Wolf,  a  Jew.  In  1855  he  sold  out  to  a  number 
of  capitalists,  who  organized  the  Continentalc  Tclc- 
grafenkompagnic,  and  then  entered  into  a  combina- 
tion with  Reuter  and  Havas,  through  which  they 
controlled  the  telegraphic  despatches  furnished  to 
the  press  of  all  Europe.  To  have  the  latest  news 
was  a  journalistic  necessity  ;  and  yet  to  maintain 
special  agents  in  the  great  centres,  and  to  pay  the 
high  rates  for  sending  special  telegrams,  would 
have  been  too  heavy  a  burden.  Nothing  remain- 
ed, therefore,  but  to  take  the  despatches  of  the 
Agencies,  which  were  now  in  league  with  one  an- 
other. 

In  Prussia  nearly  all  the  telegraphic  lines,  most 
of  which  were  put  up  during  the  reaction  after  the 
revolution  of  1848,  were  in  the  hands  of  the  gov- 
ernment ;  and  this,  of  itself,  was  sufficient  to  place 
the  Agencies  at  its  disposal.  And  in  point  of  fact, 
it  is  no  secret  that  in  Prussia^there  exists  a  censor- 
ship of  the  telegraph,  and  that  the  government  de- 
cides as  to  the  despatches  which  the  newspapers 
shall  receive.  Whoever  will  take  the  trouble  to 
weigh  this  matter  will  see  what  a  terrible  instru- 
ment for  the  perversion  of  public  opinion  is  thus 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  state.  A  despatch  has 
always  in  its  favor  the  force  of  first  impressions. 
When,  after  days  or  weeks,  explanations  follow, 
they  are  passed  over,  new  events  having  already 
preoccupied  public  attention.  All  the  world  reads 
the  telegram.;  comparatively  few  pay  any  attention 


286  German  yoiirtialism. 

to  the  later-coming  corrections  of  inaccurate  or  false 
statements. 

Prussia,  then,  through  her  "  Central  Press- Bu- 
reau," her  "  Correspondence-Bureau,"  and  her 
"  Telegram-Bureau,"  succeeded  in  getting  control 
of  the  leading  German  journals,  which,  while  keep- 
ing up  the  appearance  of  independence  and  hon- 
esty, were  either  in  her  pay  or  under  the  influence 
of  her  agents.  Public  opinion  in  Germany  was  at 
her  mercy ;  so  that,  after  she  had  made  the  most 
thorough  preparations  for  the  war  of  1866,  she 
found  no  difficulty  in  having  it  proclaimed  through- 
out the  Fatherland  that  Austria  had  been  arming 
and  was  ready  to  fall  upon  her  in  order  to  rob  her 
of  Silesia.  The  newspapers  even  lent  themselves, 
when  the  war  had  begun,  to  the  publication  of  a 
spurious  address  to  the  army  by  Benedek,  the  Aus- 
trian leader,  in  which  there  was  not  one  word  of 
truth,  but  in  which  he  was  made  to  speak  in  a  way 
that  could  not  fail  to  arouse  the  indignation  of  the 
Prussian  soldiers.  This  forged  document  was  cir- 
culated by  the  press  and  read  by  the  captains  to 
their  men  as  soon  as  they  had  entered  Bohemia. 

The  creation  of  the  new  empire  has  not  im- 
proved German  journalism.  The  "  Press-liureau  " 
has  enlarged  the  circle  of  its  activity,  while  the 
government  has  invented  other  means  not  less 
effective  for  controlling  the  newspapers.  "  We 
care  not  for  public  opinion,"  said  a  high  official  in 
Berlin  some  months  ago ;  "  for  the  entire  press 
belongs  to  us."  Prussia  has  German  public  opin- 
ion, in  so  far  as  it  is  allowed  to  find  expression,  in 


German  Journalism.  287 

her  keeping.  After  the  war  with  Austria  the  an- 
nual secret  fund  of  the  "  Press-Bureau  "  was  in- 
creased to  7o,ocx)  thalep  ;  but  this  is  in  reality  a 
very  inconsiderable  portion  of  the  money  at  its 
disposition.  The  incorporation  of  Hanover  and 
Hesse  with  Prussia  threw  into  the  hands  of  the 
government  very  large  resources.  From  George  of 
Hanover  King  William  exacted  19,000,000  thalers, 
and  from  the  Prince  Elector  of  Hesse  property 
with  an  annual  rental  of  400,000  thalers.  Both 
these  sums  were  placed  at  the  disposal  of  Bismarck 
by  the  Landtag,  that  he  might  use  them  to  defeat 
the  "  intrigues  "  of  the  enemies  of  Prussia.  It  was 
on  the  occasion  of  this  grant  that  Bismarck  used 
the  words  which  have  given  to  the  "  Press-Bureau  " 
fund  a  name  which  it  can  never  lose.  "  I  follow," 
he  said,  "  malignant  reptiles  into  their  very  holes, 
in  order  to  watch  their  doings."  The  money  which 
he  received  to»carry  on  this  dark  underground 
business  was  appropriately  designated  by  the  Ber- 
lin wits  the  **  Reptile-fund  "  {Reptilieiifond).  A 
vocabulary  of  slang  has  been  invented  to  designate 
the  hired  scribes  of  the  Bureau  and  their  opera- 
tions. Bismarck  calls  them  "  my  swine-herds " 
{ineitie  SauJiirteri).  To  write  for  the  "  Press-Bu- 
reau"  is  to  take  mud-baths  {Schlaininbdder  neli- 
mcti) ;  and  the  writers  themselves,  who  are  classified 
as  "  officious,"  *•  high-officious,"  **  half-officious," 
and  "over-officious,"  are  called  "  mud  bathers  " 
{Schlaimnbdder),  and  they  devour  the  "  Reptile- 
fund."  The  instructions  issued  by  the  directors 
for   the   preparation    of  articles    for   the   different 


288  German  Journalism. 

journals  are  styled  "wash-tickets"  [Wasclizettet). 
The  directors  who  are  not  immediately  connected 
Avith  the  Bureau  are  known  by  the  name  of  "  Pi- 
per "  {Pfeifer),  which,  in  the  jargon  of  Berlin, 
has  a  peculiar  and  by  no  means  flattering  signi- 
fication. 

As  the  buzzards  fly  to  the  carcass,  so  gathered 
the  hungry  German  scribes  around  the  "  Reptile- 
fund  "  ;  but  their  pens  were  cheap  and  the  "  Press- 
Bureau  "  was  able  to  feed  a  whole  army  of  them, 
and  yet  have  abundant  means  to  devote  to  other 
methods  for  influencing  public  opinion.  Its  machi- 
nations are,  of  course,  conducted  with  the  great- 
est secrecy.  All  manner  of  blinds  are  used.  Its 
agents  assume  in  their  articles  a  style  of  great 
independence,  deal  largely  in  loud  and  captious 
epithets,  occasionally  even  criticise  this  or  that 
measure  of  the  government,  and  ape  the  ways  of 
honest  and  patriotic  men.  The  "*  Central  Press- 
Bureau  "  itself  is  pushed  as  far  out  of  sight  as 
possible ;  stalking-horses  and  scarecrovv^s  are  put 
forward  ;  and  the  institution  is  made  to  appear 
as  only  a  myth.  But  the  Cave  of  yEolus  is  in 
Berlin,  and  the  winds  which  are  let  loose  there 
blow  to  and  fro,  hither  and  yon,  through  all  Ger- 
many, starting  currents  in  other  parts  of  the  world. 
In  this  cave  the  old  snake-worship  of  so  many 
ages  and  peoples  still  exists,  and  the  god  is  the 
"  Reptile-fund."  Out  of  this  cavern  are  blown  the 
double-leaded  leaders  which  fall  thick  all  over  the 
land,  and  always,  as  if  by  magic,  just  in  the  right 
place.     False  reports  eddy  through   the  air;  stub- 


German  Journalism.  289 

born  facts  are  pulled  and  bent  and  beaten  until 
they  get  into  the  proper  shape.  The  light  which 
is  permitted  to  fall  upon  them  is  managed  as  skil- 
fully as  in  an  art-gallery  or  a  lady's  drawing-room. 
With  the  aid  of  the  "  Reptile-fund  "  the  "  Press- 
Bureau  "  found  little  difficulty  in  extending  its 
business  of  buying  up  journals,  paying  sometimes 
as  high  as  a  hundred  thousand  thalers  for  a  single 
newspaper ;  and  where  this  could  not  be  done 
money  was  freely  spent  to  start  an  opposition 
sheet.  Whenever  a  journal  was  found  to  be  grow- 
ing weak,  aid  was  proffered  on  condition  that  it 
should  open  its  columns  to  the  "  Press-Bureau  "  ; 
sometimes  with  the  understanding  that  one  of 
its  agents  should  be  placed  in  the  editorial  chair. 
So  thoroughly  has  this  system  of  bribery  taken 
possession  of  Prussian  journalism  that  the  court 
decided  (October,  1873),  in  a  suit  against  the 
Germania  newspaper,  that  to  accuse  an  editor  of 
being  in  the  pay  of  the  "Press-Bureau"  is  not  a 
criminal  offence,  since  it  does  not  in  the  public 
estimation  tend  to  lower  his  character. 

Occasionally,  in  spite  of  the  greatest  care,  the 
secrets  of  the  Bureau  are  betrayed.  Thus  in 
February,  1874,  a  circular  was  sent  to  various 
journals,  and  amongst  others  to  the  Neiie  Wormser- 
Zeitiing,  with  the  offer  to  furnish  from  the  capi- 
tal, first,  a  tri-weekly  original  article  on  the  politi- 
cal situation ;  second,  original  political  and  diplo- 
matic advice  from  all  the  departments  of  the 
government,  also  three  times  a  week;  third,  a 
short  but  exhaustive  parliamentary  report ;  fourth, 

24 


290  German  Journalism. 

special  correspondence  from  other  capitals  (writ- 
ten in  Berlin)  ;  fifth,  original  accounts  of  foreign 
affairs,  drawn  from  the  special  sources  of  the 
Bureau ;  and,  sixth,  a  short  daily,  as  well  as  a 
more  lengthy  weekly,  exhibit  of  the  Berlin 
Bourse.  For  these  services  nothing  was  demand- 
ed ;  but,  that  the  thing  might  not  appear  too 
bald,  it  was  stated  that  the  editor  should  fix  his 
own  price.  Now,  it  so  happened  that  when  this 
circular  was  received  by  the  Naie  Wormscr-Zcitung 
that  paper  was  in  the  hands  of  Herr  Westerburg, 
a  Social  Democrat,  who  straightway  took  the  pub- 
lic into  his  confidence. 

The  newly-acquired  provinces  of  Prussia  were  a 
favorite  field  for  the  operations  of  the  Berlin  Bu- 
reau. General  Manteuffel,  in  1866,  suppressed  the 
Schleswig-Holstemisclie  Zcttittig,  and  handed  the 
country  over  to  the  reptile-press.  In  Alsace  and 
Lorraine  also  journals  were  suppressed,  and  others 
established,  by  the  government.  In  these  provinces 
the  independent  press  has  wholly  disappeared,  with 
the  exception  of  two  tame  and  unimportant  sheets. 
In  fact,  if  we  except  the  Catholic  and  a  few  Social 
Democratic  newspapers,  there  is  hardly  a  journal  of 
any  weight  in  the  German  Empire  in  which  the 
press-reptile  is  not  found.  "  I  know,"  wrote  to 
Professor  Wuttke  an  author  well  acquainted  with 
the  circumstances — "  I  know  few  German  news- 
papers in  which  there  is  not  a  mud-bather."  For 
even  passing  services  the  Bureau  is  ready  to  pay 
cash.  Chaplain  Miarka,  the  editor  of  the  Katholik, 
has  declared  publicly  that  he  was  ofifered  7,500  tha- 


Gei'man  yo2trnalis7n.  291 

lers  on  condition  of  consenting  to  write  in  a  milder 
manner  during  the  elections. 

The  working  up  of  public  opinion  through  the 
press  extends  far  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the 
German  Empire.  The  proceedings  of  the  court  in 
the  trial  of  Von  Arnim  in  1874  developed  the  fact 
that  he,  whilst  representing  Prussia  at  the  Tuileries, 
had  entered  into  relations  with  various  journals  in 
Paris,  Vienna,  and  Brussels  ;  and  it  is  generally  un- 
derstood that  50,000  thalers  were  annually  placed  at 
the  disposition  of  Herr  Rudolf  Lindau  for  the  pur- 
pose of  manipulating  the  Parisian  press.  Through 
these  and  similar  means  an  opening  for  the  arti- 
cles of  the  "  Press-Bureau  "  was  made  in  English, 
French,  and  Belgian  newspapers ;  and  these  arti- 
cles, which  had  been  first  written  in  German,  were 
translated  back  into  German  and  published  by  the 
reptile-press  as  the  expression  of  public  opinion  in 
foreign  countries  on  Prussian  affairs.  **  I  could  give 
the  names,"  says  Professor  Wuttke,  "  of  the  press- 
reptiles  who  write  for  the  Ind^pendajice  Beige,  of 
those  who  take  care  of  the  Hour,  and  of  others 
whose  duty  it  is  to  furnish  articles  to  the  Italian 
and  Scandinavian  newspapers."  *  To  hold  the  Eng- 
lish in  leading-strings,  Berlin  had,  in  1869,  a  NortJi- 
Germany  Correspondence,  and  then,  under  the  super- 
vision of  Aegidi,  the  director  of  the  "  Press-Bureau," 
a  Norddeiitsche  Correspondenz,  which  is  still  the  chief 
source  from  which  both  English  and  American  jour- 
nals draw  their  information  on  German  affairs.  The 
attempt  made  from  Berlin  to  buy  Katkoff 's  Jonrnal 

*  pie  deutscke  Zeitsckri/lcH,  p.  309, 


292  German  Journalism. 

of  Moscoiu  was  defeated  by  the  incorruptibility  of 
the  proprietor. 

The  reptile-press,  of  course,  ignores  and  strives  to 
hush  whatever  may  throw  light  upon  the  dark  work- 
ings and  intrigues  of  the  "  Press-Bureau  "  ;  and  no 
better  instance  of  its  power  in  this  respect  can  be 
given  than  the  history  of  Professor  Wuttke's  book 
on  German  journalism.  Its  existence  was  not  recog- 
nized by  the  press-reptiles  ;  its  startling  revelations 
were  ignored  or  received  in  profound  silence  ;  and 
so  successful  was  this  policy  that  a  year  after  the 
publication  of  the  work  only  three  hundred  copies 
had  been  sold  ;  and  it  is  chiefly  through  the  efforts 
of  a  Catholic  newspaper — the  Germania — and  of 
Windthorst,  a  leader  of  the  party  of  the  Centrum^ 
that  it  has  finally  been  brought  to  public  notice  and 
has  now  reached  a  third  edition.  In  the  German 
Parliament,  on  the  i8th  of  December,  1874,  Wind- 
thorst took  Professor  Wuttke's  book  with  him  to 
the  speaker's  stand,  and,  in  a  powerful  address 
against  any  further  grant  of  the  *'  Secret  Fund  " 
{Reptilienfond),  made  special  reference  to  this  work, 
which  he  characterized  as  "conscientious"  and  full 
of  startling  revelations  which  leave  room  to  sus- 
pect even  worse  things.  A  year  before  (December 
3,  1873)  the  same  speaker  declared  in  the  Prussian 
Landtag  that  in  Germany  the  government  had 
nearly  succeeded  in  getting  entire  control  of  the 
press;  that  the  influence  of  the  "Reptile-fund" 
was  already  noticeable  in  foreign  countries,  particu- 
larly in  the  newspapers  of  Vienna ;  and  that  the 
attempt  had  been    made  to  establish  a  "  Reptile- 


German  yoiirnalism.  293 

Bureau  "  in  connection  with  the  London  embassy  ; 
and  when  this  was  found  not  to  work  well,  a 
"  Press- Bureau  "  for  England,  France,  and  Italy 
was  organized  in  Berlin.  These  charges,  made  in 
public  parliamentary  debate,  were  allowed  to  pass 
without  contradiction,  although  Aegidi,  the  director 
of  the  Central  Bureau,  was  a  member  of  the  As- 
sembly and  present  during  the  discussion. 

Eugen  Richter,  the  member  for  Hagen,  brought 
forward  other  accusations  of  like  import  on  the 
20th  of  January,  1874.  We  have  already  given  an 
example  of  the  uses  to  which  the  Prussian  gov- 
ernment puts  the  reptile-press,  in  the  instance  of 
the  forged  army  address  attributed  to  Benedek, 
and  published  throughout  Germany  at  the  out- 
break of  the  war  with  Austria  in  1866.'^  Similar 
services  were  rendered  by  the  *'  mud-bathers  "  at 
the  time  of  the  crisis  with  France  in  1870.  A 
false  telegram,  purporting  to  come  from  Ems, 
dated  July  13,  1870,  in  which  the  French  minister, 
Count  Benedetti,  was  said  to  have  grossly  insulted 
King  William,  was  eagerly  taken  up  by  the  venal 
press  and  commented  upon  in  a  way  which  excited 
the  greatest  indignation  in  the  minds  of  the  Ger- 
mans against  Napoleon,  who,  they  firmly  believed, 
was  bent  upon  humiliating  Prussia.  In  this  way 
public  feeling  in  both  countries  was  fanned  into  a 
heat  which  could  be  cooled  only  by  blood.  The 
account  of  the  interview  at  Ems  was  a  fabrication, 
as    Benedetti    has    since  clearly    shown  ;    but    Bis- 

*  This  spurious  document  has  got  into  many  books;  e.g.^  into  Hahn's  Ge- 
schichie  des  preussischen  Vaterlandes. 


294  Germa7t  yournalism. 

marck's  "  swine-herds  "  had    faithfully  done   their 
unholy  work.* 

When,  just  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  the 
French  army  made  an  attack  on  Saarbriicken,  the 
reptile-press  spread  the  report  that  they  had  re- 
duced the  city  to  ashes  ;  and  this  infamous  false- 
hood made  a  deep  impression  throughout  Ger- 
many. A  similar  lie  had  been  propagated  at  the 
commencement  of  the  Austrian  war.  On  the  27th 
of  June,  1866,  the  Prussians  were  driven  from 
Trautenau  by  General  Gablenz,  and  forthwith  the 
reptile-press  raised  the  cry  that  the  citizens  of 
Trautenau  had  poured  from  their  houses  hot  water 
and  boiling  oil  on  the  retreating  soldiers  ;  and  the 
government  lent  itself  to  the  spreading  of  this  de- 
testable calumny  by  dragging  off  the  mayor  of 
Trautenau,  Dr.  Roth,  to  prison,  where  he  was  de- 
tained in  close  confinement  nearly  three  months.f 

There  is  no  subject  on  which  the  organs  of  the 
*'  Press-  Bureau"  are  more  united  or  more  eloquent 
than  the  necessity  of  keeping  up  the  full  strength 
of  the  standing  army  ;  nay,  they  have  gone  so  far 
as  to  demand  that  the  Reichstag  shall  consent  to 
take  from  the  representatives  of  the  people  the 
right  to  legislate  on  military  affairs  during  the  next 
seven  years.  But  before  taking  this  step,  hitherto 
unheard  of  in  the  history  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment, it  was  necessary  to  manipulate  public  opin- 
ion, so  that  the  members  of  parliament  might  seem 
to  be  compelled  to  this  decision  by  the  will  of  the 

*  See  Ma  Mission  en  Prusse,  by  Benedetti,  Paris,  1871,  p.  372  et  seq. 
+  Roth,  Achtzig  Tage  in  preussischen  Ge/atigenscha/t,  p.  13. 


German  yoiir7talism.  295 

people  themselves.  With  this  view  packed  meet- 
ings were  gotten  up  in  various  parts  of  the  empire 
wlTich  the  telegraph  lyingly  announced  to  the 
world  as  very  numerously  attended  and  unanimous 
in  demanding  the  seven-year  enactment ;  but  the 
popular  gatherings  which  were  held  to  protest 
against  this  violation  of  constitutional  rights  were 
passed  over  in  dead  silence,  and  their  action,  conse- 
quently, did  not  become  known  outside  of  their 
own  immediate  neighborhood.  The  reptile-press 
acted  in  full  harmony  with  the  "Telegraph-Bu- 
reau." The  Spener  sche  Zeitinig^  in  Berlin,  went  so 
far  as  to  declare  that  no  protests  had  been  heard, 
whereupon  the  Provinzialkorrcspondenz  exclaimed 
that  the  movement,  which  had  proceeded  from 
the  depths  of  the  nation's  heart  with  unexpected 
power,  should  force  the  Reichstag  to  yield  to  the 
demand  of  the  government. 

As  a  part  of  the  same  programme,  the  "  Press- 
Bureau"  just  a  year  ago  raised  the  cry  that  France 
was  buying  horses,  and  that  in  less  than  three 
months  she  would  declare  war  on  Germany.  On 
the  same  day  and  at  the  same  hour  this  startling 
announcement  was  made  in  Frankfort,  in  Leipzig, 
in  Stuttgart,  and  other  cities.  The  following  day 
hundreds  of  newspapers  throughout  the  Fatherland 
took  up  the  chorus  and  began  to  shout  that  the 
empire  was  threatened.  Now,  all  the  world  knows 
that  France  at  that  time  was  as  little  thinking  of 
making  war  on  Germany  as  of  tunnelling  the  At- 
lantic Ocean  ;  but  this  piece  of  journalistic  legerde- 
main roused  the  Teutonic  mind  to  the  necessity  of 


296  German  Jo^wnalism. 

strengthening  the  army  and  increasing  the  military 
resources  of  a  country  which  was  already  a  camp 
of  soldiers. 

No  figure  of  rhetoric  is  more  forcible  than  repe- 
tition, and  we  may  calculate  with  mathematical 
precision  just  how  many  leading  articles,  all  saying 
the  same  thing  in  fifty  different  localities,  are  re- 
quired in  order  to  fabricate  a  public  opinion  on  a 
given  subject. 

Another  trick  of  the  reptile-press  is  employed  to 
prevent  the  people  from  getting  a  knowledge  of 
the  speeches  of  the  opposition  in  parliament.  The 
arguments  of  these  orators  are  either  excluded 
from  its  columns  or  caricatured  so  as  to  appear 
childish  or  ridiculous.  When,  for  instance,  Sonne- 
mann,  the  member  for  Frankfort,  made  an  appeal 
in  behalf  of  the  Alsacians,  who  had  themselves 
been  reduced  to  dead  silence,  and  showed  from 
authentic  documents  the  pitiable  condition  to 
which  that  province  had  been  brought,  the  organs 
of  the  "  Press-Bureau  "  declared  that  "  to  answer 
such  utterances  would  be  beneath  the  dignity  of  a 
chancellor  of  the  empire  ;  such  want  of  political 
honor  had  no  claim  to  pass  as  the  honest  views  of 
an  individual  "  ;  and  when  Mallinckrodt  placed  his 
hand  on  Lamarmora's  book  to  prove  his  charges 
against  Bismarck,  the  Spencr  scJie  Zcitung  announc- 
ed that  "  the  national  parties  were  filled  with  deep- 
est disgust  at  the  conduct,  of  the  Centrum  s  iz.z-- 
tion,  and  were  not  able  to  conceal  their  regret 
that  Prince  Bismarck  should  deign  to  answer  these 
Ultramontane    brawlers,   since,    by   consenting   to 


German  Journalism.  297 

notice  the  tricks  of  Windthorst,  Mallinckrodt,  and 
Schorlemer,  he  was  giving  prominence  to  what 
ought  to  be  completely  ignored  "  ;  and  then  closed 
with  the  phrase  of  Frederick  the  Great,  "  Shall  we 
play  at  fisticuffs  with  the  rabble  ?"  The  Nord- 
deutsche  Allgemeiiie  and  National  Zeitiing  indulged 
in  similar  strains,  and  these  articles  were  then 
republished  by  nearly  the  entire  German  press. 
When  an  opponent  is  especially  troublesome  the 
press-reptiles  raise  the  cry  that  he  has  been  bought 
up  by  foreign  gold  ;  and  in  this  they  are  probably 
sincere,  since  it  must  be  difficult  for  them  to  un- 
derstand how  any  man  could  refuse  to  sell  himself 
for  a  proper  consideration. 

For  five  years  now  Bismarck's  venal  press  has 
poured  the  full  tide  of  its  wrath  upon  the  bishops 
and  priests  of  Germany.  Here  was  a  subject  upon 
which  the  reptiles  could  distil  their  venom  to  their 
hearts'  content.  What  magnificent  opportunities 
were  here  offered  to  the  "mud-bathers"  to  hunt 
through  the  sewers  of  centuries  and  to  wallow 
in  the  mire  of  ages ;  to  revive  Luther's  vocabu- 
lary and  refurbish  the  rusty  weapons  that  for  hun- 
dreds of  years  had  lain  idle  and  hurtless !  What 
an  open  field  was  here  in  which  to  ventilate  his- 
torical calumnies,  to  produce  startling  eff"ects  by 
the  dramatic  grouping  of  striking  figures  ;  to  bring 
out  the  light  of  the  golden  present  by  causing  it  to 
fall  upon  the  dark  and  bloody  background  of  the 
past !  And  what  divine  occasions  for  indignation, 
wrath,  horror,  word-painting  to  cause  the  hair  to 
stand   on   end  and   the   eyes  to  start !     Here  was 

25 


29B  Germati  journalism. 

place  for  withering  scorn,  patriotic  thunder,  lurid 
lightning  to  sear  the  Jesuitic  head  bent  upon  the 
ruin  of  the  new  empire.  And  with  what  demoniac 
delight  the  hired  crew  ring  the  changes  on  each 
popular  catch-word — progress,  liberty,  culture,  free 
thought  ;  and  how  they  foam  and  rage  when  a 
bishop  or  a  priest  has  the  "  boundless  impudence" 
to  speak  in  defence  of  the  church  !  "  It  has  come 
to  this,"  says  the  Dresdener  Volksbote  (April  17, 
1873)  :  "  Minorities  must  keep  silence." 

"  Gone,"  exclaims  a  former  German  minister  of 
state — "  gone  is  the  reign  of  noble  ideas  ;  the  power 
of  the  love  of  country  and  of  freedom  ;  the  worth 
and  honor  of  the  national  character  !  Money  alone 
is  loved,  and  all  means  by  which  it  is  acquired  seem 
natural  and  praiseworthy."  The  very  foundations 
of  the  moral  order  are  attacked  by  this  vile  press. 
The  events  of  1866  and  1870  are  now  spoken  of 
as  "an  historical  phenomenon,  which  cannot  be 
judged  by  the  current  notions  of  morality,  but 
in  accordance  with  which  these  moral  principles 
themselves  must  be  widened  and  corrected."  This 
is  the  low  and  degrading  philosophy  to  which  the 
idolatry  of  success  fatally  leads. 

But,  for  the  honor  of  journalism,  a  portion  of 
tlie  German  press  has  remained  closed  against  the 
insidious  power  of  the  "  Reptile-fund."  No  Ca- 
tholic newspaper  has  lent  itself  even  covertly  to 
this  conspiracy  against  truth  and  liberty  ;  and  it 
must  be  admitted,  too,  that  the  socialistic  journals 
have  refused  the  government  bribes;  their  circu- 
lation,   however,    which    is    not    large,    is   confined 


German  yournalism.  299 

almost  exclusively  to  the  laboring  classes,  and 
their  influence  is  but  little  felt.  The  power  of 
the  Catholic  press  in  Germany  is  of  recent  growth. 
In  the  early  part  of  the  present  century  the  only 
periodical  of  any  weight  devoted  to  the  defence 
of  the  interests  of  the  church  in  Germany  was  the 
Theologische  Quartalschrift,  founded  in  18 19  as  the 
organ  of  the  Tubingen  professors.  Twenty  years 
later  Joseph  Gorres  established  in  Munich  the 
Historisch-politischen  Blatter^  which  soon  caused 
the  influence  of  his  powerful  mind  to  be  felt 
throughout  the  Fatherland,  and  which,  under  the 
editorial  management  of  the  historian  Jorg,  is 
still  to-day  one  of  the  ablest  reviews  in  Germany. 
The  censorship  of  the  press  which,  prior  to  the 
revolution  of  1848,  was  maintained  in  all  the  Ger- 
man governments,  was  exercised  in  a  way  that 
rendered  Catholic  journalism  impossible.  No 
sooner,  however,  had  the  Parliament  of  Frankfort 
proclaimed  the  liberty  of  the  press  than  the  Ca- 
tholics hastened  to  take  advantage  of  it  by  creat- 
ing newspapers  to  advocate  their  religious  inter- 
ests. The  bishops  and  priests,  in  obedience  to 
the  earnest  exhortations  of  Pius  IX.,  threw  them- 
selves into  the  work  with  a  will ;  the  people  fol- 
lowed their  example ;  press-unions  were  formed 
and  a  large  number  of  Catholic  newspapers  sprang 
into  life.  Bismarck's  persecution  of  the  church 
has  given  yet  greater  force  to  this  movement  and 
increased  both  the  number  and  the  circulation  of 
Catholic  journals.  In  the  new  German  Empire 
there   are   to-day   two   hundred   and   thirty  news- 


300  Germa^i  yournalism. 

papers  devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  church. 
The  Aiigsburger  Wochenblatt  has  a  subscription 
list  of  thirty-two  thousand  ;  the  Mainzer  Volksblatt, 
one  of  thirty  thousand.  Twelve  thousand  copies 
of  the  Gcrviatiia  (in  Berlin)  are  sold  daily,  and 
many  other  Catholic  journals  have  a  circulation 
of  from  five  to  ten  thousand  copies.  As  this  pow- 
erful Catholic  press  could  not  be  bought,  nothing 
remained  to  be  done  but  to  silence  it. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  1872  all  Prussian  jour- 
nals were  warned,  under  pain  of  confiscation,  not 
to  publish  the  Christmas  Allocution  of  Pope  Pius 
IX.  Mallinckrodt,  the  vigilant  Catholic  leader, 
raised  his  voice  in  protest  against  this  attempt 
upon  the  liberty  of  the  press ;  but  the  Reichstag 
was  silent,  and  the  newspapers  which  had  not 
heeded  the  warning  were  seized.  The  Mainzer 
Journal  was  brought  into  court  for  having  pre- 
sumed to  print  an  open  letter  to  the  emperor,  in 
which  was  found  the  following  sentence  :  "  The 
emperor  is  bound  by  the  laws  of  the  moral  order 
just  like  the  least  of  his  subjects."  The  govern- 
ment procurator  (Schon,  in  Mainz,  on  the  19th 
of  December,  1873)  declared  that  the  emperor  is 
a  "  sanctified  "  person,  whose  majesty  is  "above 
the  laws  of  the  state,"  and  the  bare  address  "  to 
the  emperor "  is  a  punishable  offence.  For  re- 
publishing this  open  letter  the  editors  of  the 
Kolner  Volkszeiiung  and  the  Miihlheimer  Anzeiger 
were  condemned  to  prison  for  two  months.  Sieg- 
bert,  the  managing  editor  of  the  Dentscher  Reichs- 
zeitung  (Catholic),  was   called   upon   to   give   the 


Ger7iian  Journalism.  301 

name  of  the  writer  of  a  certain  article  which  he 
had  published ;  and  upon  his  declaration  that 
this  would  be  a  breach  of  honor  he  was  thrown 
into  prison. 

On  the  1st  of  July,  1874,  a  new  law  came  into 
force,  by  which  still  further  restrictions  were 
placed  upon  the  liberty  of  the  press  ;  and  on  the 
15th  of  the  same  month  the  Minister  of  Justice 
enjoined  upon  the  government  officials  to  keep 
sharp  watch  upon  the  newspapers.  Within  six 
months  from  this  date  the  Germania  newspaper  in 
Berlin  had  been  condemned  thirty-nine  times ;  and 
there  were  besides  twenty-four  untried  charges 
against  it  in  court.  In  January,  February,  March, 
and  April,  1875 — four  months — one  hundred  and 
thirty-six  editors  were  condemned  either  to  prison 
or  to  pay  a  fine.  The  most  of  these  were  Catho- 
lics, though  some  of  them  belonged  to  the  demo- 
cratic and  socialistic  press.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  say  that  the  "  press-reptiles  "  were  not  repre- 
sented among  them.  These  editors  were  thrust 
into  the  cells  of  common  criminals,  were  refused 
books  and  writing  material,  and  were  forced  to  live 
upon  "  prison  fare,"  which  many  found  so  unpala- 
table that  they  could  eat  nothing  but  rye-bread. 

The  reptile-press  alone  is  tolerated.  If  a  man 
wishes  to  be  honest,  and  has,  notwithstanding,  no 
desire  to  go  to  jail,  the  most  unwise  thing  which 
he  could  do  would  be  to  become  a  journalist  in 
the  new  German  Empire.  To  refuse  to  'eat  of  the 
"  Reptile-fund"  is  to  condemn  one's  self  to  Bis- 
marck's "  prison  fare"  of  beans  and  cold  water. 


302  Germa7i  yournalism. 

To  poison  the  wells  is  not  held  to  be  lawful, 
even  in  war;  but  to  taint  the  fountain-sources  of 
knowledge,  and  to  corrupt  the  channels  through 
which  alone  the  public  receives  its  general  infor- 
mation, is  not  thought  to  be  unworthy  of  a  great 
hero,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  Prussian  chancel- 
lor's popularity  with  Englishmen  and  Americans, 
which  is  not  diminished  even  by  his  determined 
efforts  to  crush  all  who  refuse  to  sell  their  souls 
or  renounce  their  manhood. 

"  The  only  man,"  said  Carlyle  of  Bismarck — 
"  the  only  man  appointed  by  God  to  be  his  vice- 
gerent here  on  earth  in  these  days,  and  knowing 
he  was  so  appointed,  and  bent  with  his  whole  soul 
on  doing  and  able  to  do  God's  work."  And  our 
great  centennial  celebration  of  the  reign  of  popu- 
lar government  is  to  be  desecrated  by  a  colossal 
statue  of  the  man  who  is  its  deadliest  enemy. 

We  have  not,  in  this  country,  wholly  escaped 
the  evil  effects  of  the  vast  European  conspiracy 
against  truth  and  honor  which  is  carried  on 
through  the  agency  of  *'  Press-Bureaus,"  "  Tele- 
gram-Bureaus," "  Correspondence-Bureaus,"  and 
"  Reptile-funds."  One  may,  for  instance,  readily 
detect  the  "  trail  of  the  serpent"  in  many  of  the 
cable  despatches  to  the  Associated  Press,  and  not  less 
evidently  in  the  European  correspondence  of  some 
of  our  leading  journals.  Is  it  not  worthy  of  remark 
that  so  few  of  our  great  newspapers  should  have 
taken  up  the  defence  of  the  persecuted  and  impri- 
soned German  editors?  The  American  press,  which 
can  upon  such   slight   compulsion   be   blatant   and 


German  Journalism. 


o'-'.i 


loud-mouthed,  has  been  most  reserved  in  its  treat- 
ment of  Bismarck  ;  has,  indeed,  hardly  attempted 
to  veil  its  sympathy  with  his  despotic  and  arbi- 
trary measures.  If  this  approval  of  tyranny  went 
merely  the  length  of  applauding  his  persecution 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  it  might  be  explained  by 
the  desire  to  pander  to  popular  Protestant  preju- 
dice. But  how  shall  we  account  for  it  when  there 
is  question  of  the  degradation  and  enslavement 
of  the  press  itself;  of  the  violation  of  every  prin- 
ciple of  liberty  ;  and  of  the  systematic  consolida- 
tion of  the  most  complete  military  despotism 
which  the  world  has  ever  seen  ?  Might  it  not  be 
possible,  even,  to  trace  to  the  Reptilien-fond  the 
recent  attempts  to  rekindle  in  the  United  States 
the  flame  of  religious  hate  and  fanaticism  ?  How- 
ever this  may  be,  it  is  unfortunately  true  that  mon- 
ey is  the  controlling  power  in  American  as  in  Ger- 
man journalism.  Its  influence  is  as  discernible  in 
the  columns  of  our  own  "  independent"  press  as 
in  a  genuine  Berlin  "  mud-bather's"  double-leaded 
leader. 

"  How  can  we  help  it  ?  "  said  a  well-known  edi- 
tor of  Vienna.  "  A  newspaper  office  is  a  shop 
where  publicity  is  bought  and  sold."  "  I  will  be 
frank,"  said  another  journalist.  *'  I  am  like  a  wo- 
man of  the  town  {Ich  bin  die  Hure  von  Berlin)  \ 
if  you  wish  to  have  this  and  that  written,  pay 
your  money."  Praise  and  blame,  approval  and 
condemnation,  are  the  articles  of  merchandise  of 
the  press,  and  they  are  offered  to  the  highest  bid- 
der. 


304  Ge7'ma7t  Journalisvi. 

"  When  the  proprietor  of  a  journal,"  says  Sa- 
cher-Mosach,  a  widely-known  writer,  who  was  for 
some  time  connected  with  the  Vienna  newspaper, 
the  Presse,  and  afterwards  with  the  Nciie  Freie 
Presse — "  when  the  proprietor  of  a  journal  has 
entered  into  lucrative  relations  with  a  bank,  he 
is  not  content  with  placing  his  sheet  at  its  dispo- 
sition in  whatever  relates  to  financial  matters  ;  but 
if  the  director  of  the  bank,  as  sometimes  happens, 
is  a  man  of  fancy  who  patronizes  an  actress  who 
has  beauty  but  not  talent,  he  will  order  his  thea- 
trical critic  to  praise  this  lady  without  stint ;  and 
the  critic  will  reserve  all  his  squibs  for  some  old 
comedienne  who  is  not  protected  by  a  bank  direc- 
tor or  by  any  one  else.  If  a  great  publisher  has 
all  the  works  which  appear  in  his  house  advertised 
in  the  journal,  the  proprietor  will  direct  his  book 
critic  to  find  them  all  admirably  written,  profound, 
and  full  of  the  freshest  and  most  delightful 
thoughts  ;  and  the  author  is  just  as  certain  to  be 
praised  in  this  sheet  as  he  is  to  be  torn  to  pieces 
by  the  newspapers  in  which  his  book  has  not  been 
advertised.  The  first  principle  of  journalistic  in- 
dustry and  of  the  criticism  at  its  command  is  to 
recognize  merit  only  when  and  so  far  as  it  is  finan- 
cially profitable  to  do  so."  '^ 

It  is  far  from  our  thought  to  wish  to  deny  the 
vast  power  for  good  exercised  by  the  press ;  but 
this  is.  its  own  constant  theme,  and  we  have  deem- 
ed it  a  more  worthy,  even  though  a  less  pleasant, 
task   to    point    out  at  least   some  of  the  ways  in 

♦  Sacher-Mosach,  Ueber  den  Werth  der_Krttik,  Leipzig,  1873,  p.  55. 


German  yoitrnalis^n.  305 

which  its  power  may  be  turned  against  the  highest 
interests  of  truth  and  the  dearest  liberties  of  the 
people.  A  thoughtful  and  fearless  work  on  the 
influence  of  journalism  on  our  American  civiliza- 
tion would  be  a  fitting  contribution  to  the  cen- 
tennial literature,  and  at  the  same  time  a  most 
instructive  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  country. 
The  only  attempt  of  this  kind  which  so  far  has 
been  made  does  not  rise  above  the  dignity  of 
a  compilation,  and  is  without  value  as  a  philo- 
sophical discussion  of  the  subject. 


RELIGION  AND  ART. 

"  Science,  O  man  !   thou  sharest  with  higher  spirits, 
But  Art  thou  hast  alone.'' 

iOD  is  revealed  to  all  the  faculties  of  the 
soul.  He  is  truth  ;  he  is  goodness  ;  he  is 
beauty.  He  is  known  ;  he  is  loved  ;  he 
is  adored.  He  is  the  first  and  final 
principle  of  all  knowledge ;  he  is  the  ideal  of 
every  art ;  he  is  the  type  of  all  high  and  holy  liv- 
ing. 

Art  is  the  expression  of  ideal  beauty ;  the  re- 
splendence of  mind  in  matter,  of  the  archetype  in 
nature.  It  does  not  copy,  but  creates  ;  never  rests 
in  the  seen,  but  is  transcendental ;  looks  beyond, 
through  nature,  up  to  God.  Whatever  it  sees  it 
despises,  and  whatever  it  does  it  straightway 
wishes  undone;  because  the  work  is  eternally 
below  the  thought.  Like  the  soul,  it  is  impri- 
soned in  matter,  which  it  half-loathes  and  half- 
adores;  is  drawn  to  earth  by  its  form,  to  rise 
above  which  is  the  hope  and  despair  of  all  its 
endeavor.  Its  aim  is  impossible,  but  the  highest 
and  most  glorious.  What  God  cannot  do  it  would 
accomplish — give  to  the  divine  and  infinite  beauty 
a  sensible  form  and  local  dwelling  which  will  reveal 
and  not  obscure  its  immortal  splendor.     Hence  the 


Religion  a7id  Art.  307 

real  never  satisfies  the  artist  ;  not  even  real 
art.  In  the  presence  of  some  work  of  creative 
power  he  shouts,  he  is  rapt,  he  is  borne  upward 
into  other  worlds  ;  thinks  not  of  form  or  color 
or  time  :  his  soul  has  caught  sight  of  the  immor- 
tal and  all-beautiful  and  is  ecstatic. 

Art  disenchants  ;  and  this  is  a  great  merit.  It 
teaches  how  little  of  what  might  be,  is  ;  how  far 
beneath  our  capabilities  we  ourselves  are  content 
to  remain.  It  is  a  reproach  and  makes  us  feel  our 
unworthiness ;  it  is  a  revelation  from  a  higher 
world  in  whose  presence  we  despise  ourselves  for 
resting  satisfied  with  this.  It  is  a  gleam  from  the 
face  of  God  seen  through  the  veil  of  time  and 
space — the  eternal  allurement  and  eternal  disen- 
chantment of  the  noblest  souls.  It  elevates,  puri- 
fies, and  refines.  It  is  the  most  perfect  expression 
of  the  truest  thoughts,  the  purest  loves,  the  no- 
blest virtues ;  and  when  it  is  turned  to  base  ends, 
it  veils  its  face  and  hides  its  celestial  beauty : 
the  form  remains,  but  the  soul,  like  that  of  the 
virgin  martyr,  is  borne  away  by  the  hands  of 
angels.  Even  in  nature  it  is  art  that  is  beautiful 
— the  thought,  the  idea,  symbolizing  the  unseen 
and  uncreated,  reflected  from  the  blue  heavens, 
the  starry  sky,  from  azure  mountains  or  green  isles. 

When,  in  the  spring,  we  seat  ourselves  on  the 
border  of  a  lake  in  whose  pure  waters  the  waving 
woods  and  laughing  fields,  with  trees,  plants,  and 
flowers,  are  mirrored  ;  into  whose  bosom  the  rip- 
pling rills  and  rivulets  are  flowing,  like  joyous 
children  that  run  to  meet  their  quiet  mother,  while 


3o8  Religion  and  Art. 

the  gentle  zephyrs  whisper  to  one  another  from 
leaf  to  leaf,  as  if  afraid  to  frighten  the  genius 
of  the  place — the  soul,  free  from  all  distracting 
thoughts,  escapes  from  earth  and  lifts  itself  on  the 
wings  of  contemplation  to  the  throne  of  God. 
Seated  on  the  border  of  this  enchanted  lake,  we 
grow  sad  and  pensive  ;  a  sweet  melancholy  takes 
hold  of  us ;  we  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  home, 
but  are  still  exiles. 

Hence  in  a  season  of  calm  weather, 
Though  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither — 
"   Can  in  a  moment  travel  hither, 
And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore, 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore. 

There  is  a  religious  power,  too,  in  the  grand  and 
awful  scenes  of  nature.  The  ocean,  the  desert, 
high  mountains  and  great  rivers,  storm  and  dark- 
ness, with  the  voice  of  thunder  and  the  lurid 
lightning — all  speak  of  God.  "  He  bowed  the  hea- 
vens, and  came  down :  and  darkness  was  under  his 
feet.  And  he  did  ride  upon  a  cherub,  and  did  fly : 
yea,  he  did  fly  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind.  .  .  . 
The  everlasting  mountains  were  scattered,  the  per- 
petual hills  did  bow.  .  .  .  The  overflowing  of  the 
waters  passed  by  :  the  deep  uttered  his  voice,  and 
lifted  up  his  hands  on  high."  The  child  of  nature, 
however  rude  and  imperfect  may  be  his  idea  of 
God,  is  religious  in  his  aspirations.  Before  he  can 
lose  consciousness  of  the  ever-abiding  presence  of 
the  Creator  man  must  isolate  himself,  escap-c  into 


Religion  and  Art.  309 

empty  worlds  of  shadows  and  abstractions.  So 
long  as  he  rests  upon  the  solid  earth  the  hea- 
vens surround  Iwm  and  God's  presence  is  felt. 
Art  is  man's  effort  to  recreate  nature,  to  bring  out 
the  blurred  image  of  the  divine  beauty.  How  un- 
limited is  its  range,  how  immense  its  power  I  In- 
to the  inner  sanctuary  of  science  few  men  enter,  but 
all  feel  the  force  and  inspiration  of  art.  Without 
it  there  is  no  glory ;  it  is  the  flower  and  fine  odor 
of  heroic  life  ;  the  idealization  which  gives  to  the 
world  its  noblest  characters  ;  the  soul's  high  strug- 
gle to  transfigure  the  body  and  clothe  it  in  celestial 
light.  Art  is  immortal ;  it  is  catholic ;  it  survives 
the  ruin  of  empires  and  the  decay  of  nations ;  is 
held  by  no  bonds  of  time  or  place.  It  is  born  of 
use,  but,  breaking  its  shell,  it  leaves  it  there  and 
soars  far  away  above  all  sordidness  and  all  baseness. 
It  hears  the  music  of  the  spheres,  is  bathed  in  the 
light  that  never  yet  was  seen  on  land  or  sea  ;  higher 
still  and  higher  it  is  borne  upwards  by  a  love  thaf 
never  knows  love's  sad  satiety — the  thirst  of  the 
creature  for  the  Creator,  the  groanings  and  longings 
which  make  all  nature  plaintive  and  vocal.  Banished 
from  heaven,  and  bearing  with  it  the  remembrance  of 
a  better  world,  it  wanders,  in  love  which  hopes  and 
despairs,  through  the  universe,  seeking  the  mysteri- 
ous gift  that  opens  the  gates  of  light.  It  is  the 
love  of  the  best,  the  spirit  of  unrest,  the  beauty 
ever  ancient  and  ever  new,  which  tortures  the  heart 
of  man  and  fills  it  with  a  divine  melancholy.  All 
high  art  is  sad  ;  it  scorns  enjoyment  or  whatever 
else  distracts  from  heavenly  contemplation  ;  and 


3 10  Religion  and  Art. 

when  it  is  sought  for  pleasure,  and  not  from  reli- 
gion and  love,  it  degrades  and  is  degraded.  It 
mediates  between  man  and  nature ;  reconciles 
them  ;  infuses  human  thoughts  and  passions  into 
senseless  elements,  until,  like  St.  Francis,  we  feel 
that  the  sun  and  stars  and  the  very  stones  are  our 
brothers,  thrown  out  from  the  hand  of  God,  and,  like 
ourselves,  with  travailing  and  unutterable  longings, 
seeking  the  place  of  eternal  rest,  the  central  heart 
of  love  that  draws  all  things  to  itself.  Nature's 
universal  unfolding  of  herself  in  higher  forms  is  her 
cry  to  God,  her  hunger  of  the  infinite ;  the  all-per- 
vading tremor  and  vibration  of  matter,  in  heat,  in 
light,  in  electricity,  in  the  clinging  of  atom  to 
atom,  of  body  to  body,  of  planet  to  planet,  is  the 
thrill  and  ecstasy  of  a  world  half-conscious  of  the 
divine  presence. 

The  true  philosopher,  said  Plato,  longs  for  death  ; 
for  the  divine  wisdom  whose  lover  he  is  is  given 
only  to  those  who  through  death  enter  into  life, 
who  from;the  shadowy  dreams  of  a  slumbering  ex- 
istence pass  into  the  clear  vision  of  truth's  splen- 
dor; and  so  nature  struggles  to  transcend  itself, 
until  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth  are  re- 
clothed  under  the  eye  of  God,  and  the  creature, 
no  longer  a  wanderer,  enters  into  its  rest.  And 
this  is  the  aim  and  purpose  of  art.  It  seeks  to 
transform  the  real ;  to  strike  from  inert  *  matter 
sounds  of  heavenly  harmony.  To  its  eye  every 
common  sight  is  apparelled  in  celestial  light.  It 
beholds  that  untravelled  world  whose  margin  fades 
for  ever  and  for  ever,  and  with  voice,  and  motion, 


Religion  and  Art.  311 

and  form,  and  color  strives  to  reveal  its  hidden 
glory  as  best  it  may  to  the  coarser  vision  of  the 
uninspired.  To  make  known  the  higher  reality 
which  is  concealed  beneath  the  shell  and  surface  of 
things  is  the  task  at  which  it  labors  always.  Like 
religion,  it  appeals  from  time  to  eternity,  from  ap- 
parent to  real,  from  man  to  God.  In  its  light  we 
behold  the  transcendent  beauty  of  heroic  and  no- 
ble life,  which  the  logical  faculty  does  not  detect. 
How  common  and  unprofitable  are  man's  proudest 
deeds,  if  he  is  but  an  animal,  stabled  in  this  islet 
of  time,  and  feeding  in  the  world's  great  trough  of 
matter  !  The  heaven  that  lies  about  us  in  our  in- 
fancy must  break  open  higher  and  higher,  else  we 
sink.  Its  finer  and  ethereal  air  must  be  the  soul's 
breath,  or  it  dies.  Hector  and  Achilles  were  but 
bullies  no  better  than  a  thousand  Indian  braves 
who  lacked  the  sacred  bard  and  now  lie  buried, 
unthought-of  as  the  leaves  that  overshadowed 
their  fierce  battles.  Not  her  heroes,  but  art,  made 
Greece  immortal.  Shakspere  is  worth  more  to  the 
glory  of  England  than  all  the  victories  which  he 
has  sung;  nay,  not  to  England  only  is  he  of  greater 
worth,  but  to  mankind.  Dante,  Raphael,  and  Mi- 
chael Angelo,  with  many  other  names  of  highest 
power,  have  made  Italy  the  consecrated  land  of 
poetry  and  of  song,  the  home  of  beauty  and  of  all 
loveliness — the  native  country  of  the  soul. 

It  is  only  when  we  look  at  art  through  the  puri- 
fying and  chastening  light  of  time  that  we  fully 
realize  its  influence  in  the  history  of  the  human 
race.     The  present  is  always  vulgar — loud,  glaring, 


312  Religion  and  A  vL 

and  shameless  ;  too  real  to  be  beautiful.  It  is  the 
slave  of  power  and  wealth,  soiled  by  the  idolatry 
of  success,  the  hideous  counterfeit  of  merit ;  but 
this  passes,  and  art  remains  for  ever. 

The  movement  which  carried  the  European 
mind  to  its  present  state  of  enlightenment  and  re- 
finement received  its  first  impulse  from  art  lield 
in  the  hands  of  religion. 

The  study  of  the  Grecian  and  Roman  models 
of  eloquence,  poetry,  sculpture,  and  architecture 
fired  the  Christian  nations  with  a  love  of  artistic 
perfection  which  the  Hebraizing  spirit  of  the  Re- 
formation weakened  but  could  not  destroy,  and 
which  has  given  to  our  civilization  some  of  its 
most  important  elements.  The  historic  power  of 
art  is  greater  than  that  of  history,  which,  as  a 
science,  is  known  to  few  ;  but,  when  made  beauti- 
ful and  sublime  in  poetry,  in  song,  in  eloquence, 
it  moulds  the  national  character  by  giving  dis- 
tinctness and  form  to  noble  and  heroic  lives  which 
can  in  no  other  way  be  made  manifest  to  the 
masses  of  mankind. 

It  has  been  maintained,  indeed,  that  the  influence 
of  art  upon  character  is  evil ;  that  it  develops  the 
emotions  to  the  injury  of  what  is  manly  and  earn- 
est in  our  nature ;  that  it  leads  us  to  separate 
feeling  from  action,  and  tends  to  make  us  un- 
natural and  insincere  by  causing  us  to  seek  effect 
rather  than  truth.  This  was  a  favorite  theme 
of  declamation  with  the  Latin  classics,  who  extol 
the  rustic  simplicity  of  the  fathers  and  ascribe  the 
downfall  and  ruin  of  their  country  to  the  introduc- 


ReligioJi  and  A  rt.  3 1 3 

tion  of  Greek  art  and  luxury.  Sallust,  the  most 
sensual  of  men,  would  have  us  believe  that  a  taste 
for  painting  is  a  vice  no  less  than  lewdness  or 
drinking.  But  he  declaims  with  equal  vehemence 
against  literature  ;  and,  in  fact,  if  his  argument  had 
any  value,  it  would  tell,  not  against  art  alone,  but 
against  all  politeness  and  civilization.  In  spite  of 
the  corruptions  of  society,  the  civilized  man  is 
higher  than  the  savage  ;  and  in  spite  of  the  actual 
and  possible  perversions  of  art,  its  general  effect  is 
elevating  and  religious.  The  abuse  proves  the 
use.  When  it  becomes  sensual  and  immoral,  it 
dies ;  its  soul  is  fled,  and  the  wings  which  had  a 
seraph's  power  to  bear  us  up,  with  no  middle 
flight  but  to  God's  high  heaven,  are  draggled  in 
the  mire  and  enfold  a  corpse.  It  should  be  an 
appeal  to  what  is  best,  likest  unto  God  in  our 
nature;  and  if  it  seek  to  kindle  desire  or  awaken 
passion,  it  has  denied  the  soul  and  become  material 
and  atheistic.  A  low  purpose  ruins  art,  as  super- 
stition degrades  and  unbelief  destroys  religion. 
Nothing  is  more  fatal  to  it  than  the  realism  of 
nature-worship  with  its  sensual  creed  and  desire. 
Nudity  is  not  more  beautiful  in  art  than  in  nature, 
and  only  a  low  and  degraded  taste  could  find 
pleasure  in  lifting  the  sacred  veil  of  shame  with 
which  the  soul  protects  its  heavenly  modesty  and 
shrinks  from  all  coarseness.  Art  is  symbolical, 
not  realistic,  and  the  grunting  tribe  that  seek 
to  clothe  it  in  undisguised  flesh  and  blood  are 
animals. 
2e 


3 1 4  Religion  and  A  rt. 

Chastity  and  beauty  are  sisters.  Chastity  is 
beautiful,  and  beauty  is  chaste.  True  beauty  is 
never  sensuous.  It  purifies  and  chastens.  Hence 
art  addresses  itself  less  to  sense  than  to  soul.  It 
seeks  to  awaken,  not  desire,  but  love,  admiration, 
hope,  faith,  and  all  high  sentiment.  It  is  not  form 
and  color,  but  the  expression  of  the  ideal,  the 
manifestation  of  th©  divine,  the  infinite  peering 
through  the  finite,  the  heavenly  reposing  on  an 
earthly  bosom.  Religion  and  art,  then,  are  allies. 
Between  them  there  is  no  antagonism,  as  there  is 
none  between  theology  and  science.  This  truth 
the  Catholic  Church  has  ever  proclaimed,  "  All 
religions,"  wrote  Canova  to  Napoleon,  "  cherish  art, 
but  none  so  much  as  our  own."  In  her  universal 
life  she  embraces  all  the  arts,  gives  to  them  har- 
mony and  special  ends.  Her  sacred  edifices  are 
not  alone  the  temples  of  the  living  God  ;  they  are 
also  the  sanctuaries  of  art  which  points  heavenward. 
Her  sublime  conceptions  of  God  and  man  have  re- 
vealed a  new  world  of  thought  and  sentiment. 
She  has  clothed  the  highest  truth  in  the  most  per- 
fect beauty.  Spiritual  in  all  her  teachings  and 
aspirations,  she  understands  that  the  visible  is 
but  the  symbol  of  the  unseen  ;  that  we  must 
stand  upon  the  solid  earth  before  we  can  rise  to 
higher  worlds  ;  and  that  this  is  not  a  sensuous  but  a 
reasonable  creed  which  holds  that  God  cannot  be 
worshipped  in  spirit  and  in  truth  except  through 
signs  and  symbols.  For  what  else  is  thought, 
what  else  is  language  ?  Our  truest  conceptions  of 
God  and  of  the  soul  are  but  symbols.     The  very 


Religion  and  Art.  3 1 5 

words  which  we  use  to  express  them  are  equivocal, 
as  St.  Thomas  says,  not  iinivocal. 

No  human  act  can  be  wholly  spiritual.  We 
ascend,  by  a  law  of  our  nature,  from  the  visible  to 
the  invisible,  from  the  sensible  to  the  supersensi- 
ble. A  purely  spiritual  religion  would  be  to  man 
an  inaccessible  and  unreal  religion.  There  can  be 
no  faith  where  there  is  no  thought,  nor  thought 
without  language  ;  and  language  is  addressed  pri- 
marily to  the  senses.  There  can  be  no  authorita- 
tive religious  teaching  without  a  church,  and  an 
invisible  church  is  no  church  at  all.  The  sectarian 
protest  against  the  alliance  of  religion  and  art  can 
be  justified  only  by  ignoring  the  most  essential 
fact  of  Christian  history,  which  is  the  manifesta- 
tion of  God's  power  and  beauty  and  holiness  in 
human  form.  To  take  from  the  church  her  sym- 
bolism is  to  deny  the  humanity  of  Christ.  In  an 
invisible  society  what  becomes  of  his  incarnation, 
miracles,  and  whole  positive  revelation?  His  re- 
ligion is  a  system  of  things  invisible  visibly  mani- 
fested— the  symbolism  of  divine  truth,  love,  wis- 
dom, justice,  in  their  relation  to  man  immortal  but 
sinful. 

The  union  of  the  soul  with  God  through  faith, 
hope,  and  love  is  the  first  and  highest  aim  of  reli- 
gion ;  but  faith,  hope,  and  love,  like  all  the  deep 
emotions  of  the  human  heart,  tend  irresistibly  to 
incorporate  and  express  themselves  in  symbols 
and  acts.  What  purer  or  more  spiritual  love  do 
we  know  than  that  of  the  mother  for  her  child  ? 
And  yet  with  itself  is  it  never  content,  but  rushes 


J 


o 


16  Religion  and  Art. 


out  and  infuses  itself  into  a  thousand  words,  ten- 
dernesses, ceremonies,  and  observances ;  builds  a 
temple,  erects  an  altar,  and  becomes  there  the  all- 
unselfish  and  ministering  priestess  of  God  to  evoke 
from  brutish  apathy  the  heavenly  thoughts  and 
divine  instincts  of  the  heart  of  man  ;  watches, prays, 
is  patient,  wearies  not,  stoops  to  all  lowliness  and 
is  ennobled  ;  fondles,  caresses,  speaks  words  of 
softest  music,  chides,  threatens,  rebukes ;  the  tru- 
est, the  deepest,  the  most  ceremonial  of  all  human 
devotions  is  this  love  which  gives  to  the  world  its 
worthiest  men. 

A  voiceless  faith,  a  dumb  hope,  and  a  love  with- 
out symbol  sink  back  upon  themselves  and  die. 
They  are  the  religion  of  the  infidel,  "  for  the  most 
part  of  the  silent  sort  at  the  altar  of  the  unknown 
and  unknowable."  '•'■ 

When  we  believe  in  God  we  cry  out  to  him  ; 
when  we  hope  in  him  we  lean  upon  him  ;  when  we 
love  him  we  thrown  ourselves,  like  Magdalen,  at  the 
feet  of  his  only-begotten  Son  ;  we  hear  his  voice,  we 
drink  in  his  words,  and  are  at  rest.  We  stand  be- 
neath his  cross  ;  linger  in  sorrow  and  hope  by  his 
grave  ;  are  broken-hearted  when  he  is  no  longer 
there,  till  his  risen  and  immortal  presence  gives 
us  life  again  ;  and  then  the  desert,  or  the  prison- 
walls  of  love,  or  any  spot  where  we  may  forget  the 
world  wholly  and  live  to  him  only,  is  our  paradise. 
With  him  we  keep  fast  and  vigil  and  feast  ;  hear 
the  angel  announce  his  birth  ;  behold  the  immacu- 
late maiden,  Virgin  and  Mother;  follow  her  into  the 

♦  Huxley,  Lny  SexJirons^  p.  16. 


Religion  and  Art.  3 1 7 

mountains,  and  with  her  we  go  up  to  Bethlehem. 
In  the  stable  we  adore  our  God,  lying  all-helpless 
between  the  ox  and  the  ass,  hear  his  first  piteous 
cry  of  suffering  and  of  love;  for  us  the  angels  sing 
again  the  glad  song  the  shepherds  heard  on  the  hills 
of  Judea.  The  wise  men  come  out  of  the  East. 
Herod  rages;  the  wail  of  mothers  who  cannot 
be  consoled  strikes  upon  our  ear ;  and  into  Egypt 
we  follow  Mary  and  Joseph  as  they  bear  the  divine 
Child.  We  are  with  him  in  the  carpenter's  shop, 
as  he  consecrates  and  ennobles  labor;  we  are  with 
him  amid  the  doctors,  as  he  shows  that  the  folly 
of  God  is  better  than  the  science  of  men.  By  the 
banks  of  the  river  Jordan  we  hear  the  voice  of 
John  :  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God."  The  heavens  are 
opened,  the  Holy  Ghost  descends,  and  with  the  Son 
of  Man  leads  us  into  the  desert,  to  fast,  to  pray,  to 
dwell  alone  with  sadness  and  with  God,  to  be  sore- 
ly tempted  by  the  evil  one,  by  the  evil  in  ourselves, 
by  the  great  world-picture  of  pleasure  and  of  glory  ; 
and  still,  by  the  power  of  prayer  and  solitude,  to 
conquer,  "  to  rise  on  stepping-stones  of  our  dead 
selves  to  higher  things,"  until  we  feel  and  know  and 
are  certain  that  not  on  bread  alone  doth  man  live, 
but  on  every  word  which  God's  mouth  speaketh. 

Through  the  long  centuries,  year  after  year,  with 
love's  unerring  instinct,  the  church  leads  her  chil- 
dren along  the  sacred  way  the  Bfessed  Christ  did 
tread,  lingers  over  each  hallowed  spot  in  joy,  in 
thankfulness,  in  sorrow,  or  in  triumph,  nor  feels 
the  deadening  weight  of  time  nor  the  fatal  curse 
of  distance. 


3 1 8  Religion  and  A  rt. 

"  For  thou  dost  soothe  the  heart,  thou  Church  of  Rome, 
By  th\'  unwearied  watch  and  varied  round 
Of  service  in  thy  Saviour's  holy  home." 

Art's  highest  mission  is  to  reveal  to  the  world 
Jesus  Christ  in  his  birth,  in  his  life,  in  his  death,  in 
his  resurrection.  He  is  the  ideal  of  art — the  most 
beautiful  and  perfect  conception  of  the  divine 
mind.  He  is  God,  the  all-beautiful,  made  manifest. 
Purity  and  gentleness  and  grace,  with  power  and 
majesty,  combine  to  make  him  the  fairest  and  the 
noblest  figure  in  history,  to  whom  the  whole  world 
bows  in  love  and  adoration.  There  is  no  other 
like  unto  him  ;  between  him  and  all  other  men 
there  is  the  distance  that  separates  heaven  from 
earth,  the  divine  from  the  human.  Every  highest 
aspiration  and  worthiest  love  find  in  him  at  once 
their  inspiration  and  their  ideal. 

There  is  a  shadow  on  the  countenance  of  Jesus 
w'hich  gives  to  it  its  artistic  completeness.  It  is 
sorrow.  In  gayety  and  joy  there  is  a  trivial  some- 
thing which  deprives  them  of  the  highest  artistic 
effect.  The  cheek  of  beauty  is  not  divine  unless 
the  tear  of  sorrow  trickle  down  it.  To  preach 
Jesus  Christ,  and  him  crucified,  is  not  to  preach 
true  religion  only,  but  also  the  ideal  of  art.  The 
first  and  noblest  art  is  eloquence,  which  is  in  itself 
sculpture,  painting,  poetry,  music — yea,  and  archi- 
tecture ;  for  what  worthier  temple  of  God  do  we 
know  than  the  human  body,  all-conscious  with 
soul,  tremulous  with  generous  passion,  vocal  with 
sublime  thought  and  heroic  sentiment?  Christ 
Jesus  blessed  eloquence  and  bade    it  convert  the 


Religion  and  A  rt.  3 1 9 

world.  "  Go  ye  therefore,"  he  said,  '*  and  teach  all 
nations."  The  divine  command  was  to  preach  the 
word,  not  to  write  it  ;  and  this  living  word,  spoken 
by  lips  touched  with  celestial  fire,  has  infused  life 
and  warmth  into  the  world,  converted  the  nations, 
and  changed  the  face  of  the  earth.  It  was  the 
first,  and  is  always  the  sincerest  and  worthiest,  free 
popular  speech.  Before  Christ  gave  his  great- 
commission  to  the  apostles  philosophers  had  dis- 
coursed to  their  chosen  disciples,  and  orators  had 
declaimed  to  citizens  on  the  interests  of  the  state ; 
but  no  one  had  spoken  to  the  people  as  moral 
beings  with  duties  and  responsibilities  which  lift 
them  into  the  world  of  the  infinite  and  eternal. 
There  were  priesthoods,  but  they  were  mute  in 
presence  of  the  people,  intent  upon  hiding  from 
them  all  knowledge  of  their  mysteries.  Religious 
eloquence  did  not  exist ;  it  first  received  a  voice  on 
the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Genesareth  and  on  the 
hills  of  Judea,  in  the  preaching  of  Jesus,  who  re- 
mains for  ever  its  supreme  exponent,  speaking 
with  God-like  liberty,  as  one  who  had  authority, 
on  whatever  most  nearly  touches  the  dearest  in- 
terests of  men  ;  speaking  chiefly  to  the  people, 
bringing  back  to  their  minds  the  long-forgotten 
truth  which  proves  them  the  royal  race  of  God. 
The  preaching  of  God's  word  with  the  heavenly 
liberty  which  no  earthly  power  might  lessen  be- 
came the  great  school  of  the  human  race  ;  it  was 
the  first  popular  eloquence,  and  like  an  electric 
thrill  it  ran  through  the  earth.  It  belongs  to  the 
religion  of  Christ  alone.     Mahomet,  who  sought  to 


2,20  Religion  and  Art. 

borrow  it,  was  able  to  catch  only  its  feeble  echo. 
This  free  Christian  public  speech  is  unlike  all  other 
oratory;  it  possesses  an  incommunicable  character- 
istic through  which  it  has  exercised  the  most  bene- 
ficent influence  upon  the  destinies  of  mankind.  It 
is  essentially  spiritual ;  lifts  the  soul  above  the 
flesh  ;  creates  new  ideals  ;  and,  by  inspiring  con- 
tempt for  whatever  is  low  or  ephemeral,  begets 
enthusiasm  for  the  divine  and  eternal.  It  is  a 
voice  whose  soul-thrill  is  love — the  boundless  love 
of  God  and  of  men,  who  are  the  children  of  this 
love,  and  therefore  brothers.  This  voice  cannot  be 
bought  ;  it  cannot  be  silenced.  Currit  verbiim  said 
St.  Paul,  and  again  from  his  prison-cell :  "  But  the 
word  of  God  is  not  fettered."  On  innumerable  lips 
it  is  born  ever  anew  ;  and  always  and  everywhere 
it  is  a  protest  against  the  brutality  of  power,  an 
appeal  in  the  name  of  God,  our  Father  in  heaven, 
in  behalf  of  the  poor,  the  oppressed,  the  disinherit- 
ed of  humanity.  Men  may  still  be  tyrants,  may 
still  crush  the  weak,  and  sacrifice  truth  and  justice 
to  their  lustful  appetites  ;  but  the  voice  of  God, 
threatening,  commanding,  rebuking,  shall  be  silent 
never  more.  Festus  shall  tremble  before  Paul  : 
at  the  bidding  of  Ambrose  Theodosius  shall  re- 
pent ;  and  before  Hildebrand  the  brutal  Henry 
shall  bow  his  head.  At  the  sound  of  this  voice  all 
Europe  shall  rouse  itself;  shall  rush,  impelled  as 
by  some  divine  instinct,  into  the  heart  of  Asia  to 
strike  the  mighty  power  which  threatened  to  blight 
the  budding  hope  of  the  world.  Who  can  esti- 
mate the  priceless  value  and  supreme  force  of  this 


Religion  and  Art.  ^21 

free  Christian  speech,  which,  without  asking  leave 
of  king  or  people,  but  impelled  by  a  divine  neces- 
sity, made  itself  heard  of  the  whole  earth  ?  Over 
the  portals  of  his  Academy  Plato  wrote  :  "  None 
but  geometers  enter  here."  Over  the  ever-open 
door  of  the  church  was  the  word  of  Christ :  "  Come 
to  me,  all  ye  who  labor  and  are  heavy  laden," 

"  All  you,"  exclaimed  St.  Augustine,  "  who 
labor,  who  dig  the  earth,  who  fish  in  the  sea,  who 
carry  burdens,  or  painfully  and  slowly  construct 
the  barks  in  which  your  brothers  will  dare  the 
waves — all  enter  here,  and  I  will  explain  to  you 
not  only  the  yrcadi  Geavrov  of  Socrates,  but  the 
most  hidden  of  mysteries — the  Trinity." 

This  new  eloquence  was  as  large  as  the  human 
race ;  it  was  for  all,  and  first  of  all  for  the  poor  and 
the  oppressed.  It  was  not  artistic  in  the  technical 
meaning;  it  did  not  captivate  the  senses;  it  was 
not  polished.  There  was  no  showy  marshalling  of 
words  and  phrases,  no  sweet  and  varied  modulation 
of  voice,  no  graceful  and  commanding  gesture. 
Around  the  altar  were  gathered  the  slave,  the  beg- 
gar, the  halt,  and  the  blind — the  oppressed  and 
suffering  race  of  men.  If  among  them  were  found 
the  rich  and  high-born,  they  were  as  brothers — their 
wealth  and  noble  birth  entered  not  into  the  church 
of  Christ.  Here  was  neither  freeman  nor  slave — all 
were  one.  Thus  in  every  Christian  assembly  was 
typed  the  humanity  which  was  to  be  when  all  men 
should  be  brothers  and  free.  To  these  new-born 
souls  the  apostle  of  Christ  spoke  :  "  My  brothers," 
he  said,  or  "  My  children  "  ;  and  though  all  history 

27 


322  Religion  and  Art. 

and  all  society  shrieked  against  him,  they  who  heard 
knew  and  felt  that  his  words  were  God's  truth. 
The  heart  is  not  deceived  in  love.  "  I  seek  not 
yours,"  he  said,  "  but  you  ;  for  God  is  my  witness 
how  I  long  after  you  all  in  the  heart  of  Jesus 
Christ.  ...  I  could  wish  that  myself  were  ac- 
cursed if  only  my  brethren  be  saved."  And  then, 
Avith  the  liberty  which  love  alone  knows  and  gives, 
he  threatened,  rebuked,  implored,  laid  bare  the 
hidden  wounds  of  the  soul,  nor  feared  to  become 
an  enemy  for  speaking  truth. 

To  the  great  and  the  rich  he  spoke  right  out, 
reminding  them  of  their  duties,  denouncing  their 
indifference,  their  cruelty,  their  injustice  ;  and  then, 
in  accents  sweet  as  a  mother's  voice,  he  breathed 
hope  and  courage  into  the  hearts  of  those  who 
suffer,  showing  them  beyond  this  short  and  delu- 
sive life  the  certain  end  and  reward  of  their  strug- 
gles and  sorrows.  He  taught  them  that  the  soul  is 
the  highest,  that  purity  is  the  best,  that  only  the 
clean  of  heart  see  God  ;  that  man's  chief  worth  lies 
in  that  which  is  common  to  all,  derived  from  God 
and  for  him  created.  Human  life  was  perishing, 
wastefully  poured  through  the  senses  on  every 
carnal  thing.  No  love  of  beauty  or  truth  or  jus- 
tice was  left.  The  mind  was  darkened,  the  heart 
was  paralyzed. 

The  great,  strong  passions  that  bore  the  people 
of  Rome  in  triumph  through  the  earth  were  dead  ; 
everywhere,  in  religion,  in  art,  in  manners,  was  the 
foul  blight  of  materialism  ;  and  a  kind  of  delirium- 
drove  men  into   animal    indulgences,   to   soul    and 


Religion  and  A  rt. 


0^3 


body  alike  fatal.  To  a  race  thus  glued  to  the 
earth  by  carnal  appetites  came  the  voice  of  the 
apostle  preaching  Christ,  and  him  crucified  ;  telling 
of  the  divine  love  that  bowed  the  heavens  and 
brought  down  God's  own  Son  to  suffer,  to  labor,  to 
die  for  them.  He  was  poor,  he  was  meek,  he  was 
humble  ;  he  fasted,  he  prayed  ;  he  comforted  the 
sorrowful,  gave  hope  to  the  despairing  ;  he  offered 
up  his  life  for  men.  Such  as  he  was,  those  who 
believe  in  him  must  be.  To  be  heartless,  to  be 
cruel,  to  be  unjust,  to  serve  the  lusts  of  the  flesh, 
is  to  have  no  part  with  him.  This  is  the  great 
work  which  Christian  eloquence  did  for  art ;  it 
turned  the  mind's  eye  from  the  contemplation  of 
beauty  of  form  to  the  inner  life  of  the  soul  ;  from 
thoughts  of  power  and  success  to  principles  of 
right  and  justice ;  from  the  narrowness  of  exag- 
gerated patriotism  to  catholic  sympathies  ;  from 
the  desire'of  enjoyment  through  indulgence  to  the 
idea  of  happiness  through  self-restraint.  It  brought 
home  to  man  the  fuller  consciousness  of  his  im- 
mortal and  transcendental  value  ;  gave  to  him 
exalted  aims  and  worthy  ideals.  It  declared  that 
man  is  more  than  the  state,  as  God  is  more  than 
the  world,  and  in  this  way  inspired  those  views  of 
the  paramount  worth  of  the  individual  soul  with- 
out which  there  could  be  no  successful  reaction 
against  the  sense-worship  of  paganism — a  low  and 
material  creed  without  eternal  verities  upon  which 
to  rest.  Power  was  its  divinity,  and  it  was  there- 
fore without  pity  or  tenderness  ;  success  was  its  jus- 
tification, and  it  consequently  trampled  upon  right. 


324  R^ ligion  and  A  rt. 

There  can  be  no  high  art  without  great  doctrines. 
If  man  is  only  an  animal,  Landseer  is  the  noblest 
painter. 

" ....     By  the  soul 
Only  shall  the  nations  be  great  and  free." 

As  the  Christian  religion  is  the  fullest  revelation 
of  the  soul,  it  ought  to  produce  the  highest  art. 
Since  human  nature  has  been  transfigured  and  re- 
created by  the  immediate  and  personal  union  with 
it  of  God  himself,  art  ought  to  be  able  to  disclose 
the  soul  and  permit  us  to  gaze  upon  the  divine 
possibilities  which  in  it  lie  latent.  It  may  no 
longer  linger  in  form  and  color  and  motion,  as  if 
these  were  its  abiding  home.  It  is  wedded  to  the 
soul  and  must  soar  or  die.  In  the  presence  of 
men  supremely  great  we  cannot  stop  to  notice  how 
they  are  clothed.  Homer  was  blind  and  a  beggar, 
but  who  can  remember  this  when  in  his  adven- 
turous flight  he  bears  us  upward,  and  we  hear  the 
great  world-song  to  which  all  the  nations  have 
listened  through  a  hundred  generations  ?  The  in- 
ner life,  if  it  be  pure  and  high,  elevates  and  enno- 
bles the  meanest  forms.  True  art,  like  heroic  souls, 
lifts  itself  above  its  embodiment,  and,  rising  into 
the  world  of  the  eternal  and  the  infinite,  unwraps 
itself  of  the  vesture  woven  in  the  roaring  loom  of 
Time.  It  leaves  behind  all  passion  and  desire,  all 
enjoyment  of  sense,  and  reposes  supremely  blest  in 
that  which,  unchangeable,  is  yet  never  the  same. 
It  aims  not  merely  at  the  beautiful,  but  seeks  the 
true  and  the  good  ;  knowing  that 


Religion  and  Art.  325 

"  Beauty,  Good,  and  Knowledge  are  three  sisters 
That  dote  upon  each  other,  friends  to  man." 

Without  this  union  of  virtue  with  beauty  there 
can  be  no  Christian  art.  All  its  purposes  are  holy. 
Its  mission  is  not  to  multiply  the  pleasures  of  the 
fortunate,  but  to  comfort  the  unhappy  ;  to  raise  to 
heaven  eyes  weighed  down  by  sorrow  or  blinded 
by  the  vulgar,  garish  world  ;  to  reveal  to  all  who 
despair  of  this  life  the  certain  and  immortal  triumph 
of  those  who  suffer  in  faith  and  hope  and  love. 

There  is  no  art  for  art's  sake.  It  exists  for  man, 
and  can  be  worthy  only  by  being  useful.  The 
lordly  palace  grew  out  of  the  hut  that  sheltered 
from  wind  and  rain  some  barbarous  fisherman 
clothed  in  the  skins  of  beasts  ;  the  sweetest  and 
most  celestial  song  caught  its  first  faint  echo  from 
the  tender  lullaby  with  which  some  poor  mother 
sang  her  babe  to  sleep.  All  art  is  born  of  man's 
craving  for  a  higher  and  better  life,  and,  though  it 
cannot  satisfy  this  desire,  it  ought  to  raise  our 
thoughts  to  Him  in  whom  alone  the  human  heart 
can  find  repose. 

Poetry  is  akin  to  eloquence,  and,  like  it,  has  a 
religious  mission.  The  orator  and  the  poet  are 
both  born  and  both  are  made,  despite  the  ancient 
proverb.  The  universe  is  God's  poem,  and  art  but 
a  feeble  attempt  to  interpret  its  mystic  and  infinite 
meaning.  Poetry  is  the  natural  language  of  all^ 
worship,  and  the  muse  soars  her  loftiest  flight  only 
on  the  wings  of  religious  inspiration.  The  most 
poetic  word  in  language  is  the  brief,  immense  word 
—  God.     It  is  the  sublimest,  the  profoundest,  the  ho- 


o 


26  Religion  and  Art. 


liest  word  that  human  tongue  can  speak.  It  is  the 
instinctive  cry  of  the  soul  in  moments  of  supreme 
trial.  In  the  hour  of  victory,  in  the  hour  of  death, 
in  the  ecstasy  of  joy,  in  the  agony  of  woe,  this 
sacred  word  bursts  spontaneously  from  the  human 
heart.  It  is  the  first  word  our  mother  taught  our 
infant  lips  to  lisp  when,  pointing  to  heaven,  she 
told  us  of  God,  our  Father,  and  bade  us  look  above 
this  base,  contagious  earth.  When  the  mother  for 
the  first  time  feels  her  first-born's  breath,  in  the 
overflowing  tenderness  of  a  boundless  gratitude 
she  pronounces  the  name  of  God  ;  when,  in  the 
helplessness  of  misery,  she  bends  over  the  grave  of 
her  only  child,  and  her  heart  is  breaking,  she  can 
find  no  relief  to  her  agonizing  soul,  until,  raising 
her  tearful  eyes  to  heaven,  she  breathes  in  prayer 
the  name  of  God.  When  two  young  hearts  that 
beat  as  one  vow  eternal  love,  it  is  in  the  name 
of  God  they  do  it  ;  and  the  union  of  love 
loses  all  its  sacredness  and  half  its  charm,  un- 
less it  is  sealed  before  God's  altar  and  in  his 
holy  name.  When  the  mother  sends  her  son  to 
do  battle  for  his  country,  she  puts  God's  bene- 
diction upon  him  :  "  God  be  with  thee,  my  boy  !" 
When  nations  are  marshalled  in  deadly  array  of 
arms,  and  the  alarmi^ig  drum  foretells  the  dan- 
ger nigh,  and  the  trumpet's  clangor  sounds  the 
charge,  and  contending  armies  meet  in  the  death- 
grapple  amid  fire  and  smoke  and  the  cannon's 
awful  roar,  until  victory  crowns  them  that  win, 
those  banners  that  were  borne  proudly  on  till 
they  floated  in  triumph  on  the  field  of  glory  are 


Religion  and  A  rt.  327 

gathered  together  in  some  great  temple  of  reli- 
gion, and  there  an  assembled  people  sing  aloud  : 
"We  praise  thee,  O  God!  we  glorify  thee,  O 
Lord  !  " 

When  we  see  clearly  and  feel  deeply,  prose  no 
longer  satisfies  us.  Poetry  is  truer  than  prose — 
expresses  more  nearly  what  all  ought  to  feel  in  the 
presence  of  the  glories  of  God's  universe. 

"  The  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

We  move  about  in  worlds  not  realized  ;  and  to 
the  poet's  mind  this  t'hought  is  always  present. 
He  is  lost  in  wonder,  rapt  in  ecstasy  ;  he  laughs, 
weeps,  exults,  shouts,  despairs,  and  hopes;  and  if 
he  have  but  a  common  nature,  the  higher  v/orld 
that  breaks  open  before  his  gaze  dazzles  and  un- 
settles him.  It  is  therefore  genius  is  akin  to  mad- 
ness, and  they  who  have  the  highest  thoughts 
may  lead  the  lowest  lives. 

Poetry  need  not  be  wedded  to  verse,  though 
noble  sentiments  and  deep  feeling  will  always  find 
expression  in  rhythmical  and  harmonious  words. 
The  thoughts  which  are  nearest  and  dearest  to  the 
soul  it  does  not  speak,  but  sings.  The  Bible  is 
full  of  poetry.  Sublimer  or  more  touching  lyrics 
than  the  Psalms  of  David  have  not  beeii  written. 
They  are  for  ever  the  song  of  the  soul  craving,  in 
the  midst  of  darkness  and  of  death,  the  light  and 
the  life.  All  true  poetry  springs  from  religious 
sentiment — from  the  longing  for  some  higlier  sym- 
bol of  the  divine  and  uncreated.  Never  did  child 
look   out   upon  the   glad    earth  or  into    the   deep 


328  Relig  ioii  and  A  rt. 

heavens  but  he  felt  -the  need  of  poetry  to  speak 
his  reverence  and  gratitude.  What  sublimer  poet 
is  there  than  Job  ?  Like  a  Titan  he  girds  his  loins 
to  struggle  with  the  eternal  problem  of  human 
destiny.  Never  has  the  radical  misery  of  our  pre- 
sent condition,  as  contrasted  with  the  infinite  as- 
pirations of  our  being,  given  birth  to  more  pathe- 
tic or  more  heartrending  lamentations.  It  is  the 
despairing  cry  of  a  boundless  yearning,  which  he- 
roic faith  gradually  subdues  and  changes  into  the 
peace  of  tranquil  hope. 

What  depth  and  spiritual  force  has  not  the 
Christian  religion  given  to  poetry  !  Groves,  flowers, 
and  running  waters  satisfied  the  poets  of  pagan- 
ism ;  but  not  the  boundless  ocean,  nor  the  starry 
heavens,  nor  aught  else  can  express  the  infinite 
thoughts  and  emotions  which  fill  the  soul  of  a 
Christian. 

What  chastening  and  ennobling  influence  has 
not  the  veneration  with  which  the  church  has  sur- 
rounded the  Blessed  Virgin  exercised  upon  the 
spirit  of  poetry  ! 

"  Mother  !  whose  virgin  bosom  was  uncrost 
With  the  least  shade  of  thought  to  sin  allied  ; 
Woman  !  above  all  women  glorified. 
Our  tainted  nature's  solitary  boast ; 
Purer  than  foam  on  central  ocean  tost  ; 
Brighter  than  eastern  skies  at  daybreak  strewn 
With  fancied  roses  ;  than  the  unblemished  moon 
Before  her  wane  begins  on  heaven's  blue  coast  ; 
Thy  image  falls  to  earth." 

The  poet  may  now  no  more  dream  of  woman,  ex- 
cept   as  clothed  in  the  sacred    modesty  and  spot- 


Religion  and  Art.  329 

less  purity  of  the  Virgin-Mother  of  the  God-born 
ChUd. 

We  cannot  think  of  Mary  but  religion  melts  into 
poetry  ;  and  the  thousand  heavenly  thoughts  and 
heavenly  sentiments  which  in  Christian  lands  and 
Christian  hearts  centre  in  the  hallowed  names  of 
mother,  sister,  wife — highest  names  of  love,  of 
beauty,  of  truth — owe  their  sweetness  and  their 
power  to  her  influence.  This  devotion  has  puri- 
fied and  consecrated  the  passion  of  love,  which  no 
poet  has  left  unsung ;  has  lifted  it  out  of  matter 
and  sense  and  wedded  it  to  the  soul ;  has  crown- 
ed it  with  sacramental  glory  and  immortal  hope. 
Through  the  grave  into  life  it  issues  forth  again 
deathless.  Such  love  is  not  possible  where  woman 
is  common  or  coarse ;  and  if  she  were  forced  into 
vulgar  and  noisy  contact  with  the  public  ways  and 
affairs  of  men,  it  would  die  as  surely  as  in  the 
mephitic  air  of  an  Eastern  harem.  To  be  divine, 
it  needs  a  sanctuary  and  faith  in  God. 

What  poefVy  is  like  that  which  Christian  faith 
has  inspired  ?  Dante,  the  sovereign  poet,  looms 
in  colossal  majesty  above  all  who  have  followed 
him,  and  none  is  comparable  to  him.  Through  a 
trinity  of  transformations  he  rises  to  paint  a  three- 
fold world — sombre  and  terrible,  sad  and  devout, 
rapt  and  ecstatic.  There  is  no  tenderness  like 
Dante's ;  neither  is  there  any  intensity  or  seri- 
ousness like  his.  There  are  cries  which  drown  the 
agonies  of  hell ;  silences  which  in  a  moment  grow 
eternal ;  and  then  notes  so  sad  and  sweet  that  all 
our  being  melts  to  tears,  and  we  would  be  content 


330  Religion  and  Art. 

to  weep  for  ever,  were  it  not  that  the  celestial  light 
breaks  upon  us,  and  we  hear  the  fountains  of 
life  like  music  flowing,  and  are  borne  upward  into 
a  world  where  we  forget  all  time  and  place,  and 
know  and  love  God  only.  Man's  spiritual  nature 
has  reconquered  its  supremacy,  and,  scorning 
matter,  he  enters  into  the  realms  where  angels 
and  demons  contend  in  immortal  warfare.  From 
religious  faith  Milton,  like  a  seraph  strong,  drew 
his  high  inspiration.  "  Of  his  moral  sentiments," 
says  Dr.  Johnson,  "  it  is  hardly  praise  to  affirm  that 
they  excel  those  of  all  other  poets;  for  this  supe- 
riority he  was  indebted  to  his  acquaintance  with 
the  sacred  writings." 

Calderon,  Lope  de  Vega,  Camoens,  Tasso,  are 
all  witnesses  to  the  poetic  inspiration  of  religious 
faith.  Lope  de  Vega,  in  saying  his  first  Mass, 
fainted  at  the  bare  thought  of  the  sublime  and 
awful  mystery  of  Christ's  Real  Presence.  Most 
clearly  seen,  too,  is  the  poetic  power  of  the  Chris- 
tian spirit  in  Corneille  and  Racine*the  greatest 
poets  of  France. 

The  modern  drama,  which  embraces  all  other 
kinds  of  poetry,  is  not  only  based  upon  views  of 
human  life  distinctively  Christian,  but  grew  out  of 
the  religious  Mysteries  of  the  middle  ages  which 
still  survive  in  the  Passion  Play  at  Ober-Ammergau. 
This  is  true  alike  of  the  tragedies  of  Shakspere 
and  of  the  Autos  Sacrameiitales  oi  Csild&ron. 

Christ  has  lifted  the  pall  which  hung  in  dark  and 
impenetrable  folds  around  the  life  of  man.  He  is 
no  longer  the  plaything  of  fate,  the  helpless  vie- 


Religion  a7id  Art.  2>Z  ^ 

tim  of  inexorable  destiny,  who  feels  upon  his  heart 
the  brutal  foot  of  an  unknown  and  pitiless  power. 
He  is  free,  and  through  the  tangled  web  of  good 
and  ill  walks  with  no  uncertain  step.  He  knows 
the  divine  efficacy  that  there  is  in  suffering  and 
sorrow,  ^and  that  the  uses  of  adversity  are  sweet. 
Above  Necessity  is  Liberty,  and  Life  is  ever 
Lord  of  Death.  In  Christ  he  beholds  the  heroic 
and  tragic  ideal  of  the  highest  life.  All-pure  and 
gentle,  he  is  trampled  upon,  crushed,  nailed  to  the 
cross,  and  his  tomb  is  walled  in  with  ignominy  and 
sealed  with  contempt.  And  still  he  triumphs — 
stands  deathless  over  the  grave  and  places  his 
cross  on  the  brows  of  crowned  kings  and  on  the 
summit  of  all  earthly  things.  Here  is  the  divinest 
drama.  Suffering  there  is  still,  and  still  there  is 
death  ;  but  the  heart  that  believes  and  is  pure,  is 
immortal  and  conquers  fate.  Compare  the  death- 
struggle  of  Laocoon  with  the  agony  of  Christ  on 
the  cross.  Laocoon,  in  terror  and  despair,  struggles 
hopelessly  with  inexorable  fate,  which  with  cold 
and  pitiless  grip  is  crushing  him  ;  Christ,  in  more 
intense  and  keener  suffering,  consents  to  death,  but 
conquers  agony  ;  is  tranquil  in  the  supreme  sacri- 
fice of  infinite  love,  and  through  the  shadows  of  the 
darkened  sun  the  light  of  eternal  day  pierces  ;  or 
Niobe,  turned  to  stone  by  hopeless  grief,  with  the 
Mother  of  Sorrows,  who  stands  beneath  the  cross 
of  her  divine  Son  with  heart  transfixed  by  the 
sword  of  anguish,  and  is  calm  because  love  like 
hers  knows  that  God  is  love. 

Poetry  passes  naturally  into  music  ;  for  the  poet 


332  Religion  and  A  rt. 

sings,  and  is  tormented  by  his  thought  until  it 
finds  harmonious  and  rhythmic  expression.  The 
thought  creates  the  rhythm,  and  when  the  rhyme 
seeks  the  thought  there  is  no  poetry.  "  The 
beginning  of  literature,"  says  Emerson,  "  is  the 
prayers  of  a  people,  and  they  are  always  hymns." 
Music  is  poetry  in  tones.  It  is  the  language  of 
feeling,  the  universal  language  of  man.  The  cry 
of  joy  and  of  sorrow,  of  triumph  and  of  despair, 
of  ecstasy  and  of  agony,  is  understood  by  all  be- 
cause it  is  the  voice  of  nature.  The  strong  emo- 
tions of  the  heart  all  seek  expression  in  modula- 
tion of  sound ;  and  religious  sentiment  is  both 
awakened  and  calmed  by  music  which  lifts  the 
soul  out  of  the  world  of  sense  and  elevates  it 
towards  the  infinite  and  invisible.  Nearer  than 
anything  else  it  expresses  the  inner  relations  and 
nature  of  beings;  the  universal  order  and  harmony 
which  is  found  even  in  seemingly  discordant  and 
jarring  elements.  It  is  the  most  spiritual  of  arts, 
and  more  than  any  other  is  degraded  when  per- 
verted   to    low    and    sensuous    uses. 

"  There  is,"  says  Cousin,  "  physically  and  morally 
a  marvellous  relation  between  a  sound  and  the 
soul.  It  seems  as  though  the  soul  were  an  echo  in 
which  the  sound  takes  a  new  power." 

Something  of  this  kind  Byron  also  felt : 

"  Oh  !  that  I  were 
The  viewless  spirit  of  a  lovely  sound, 
A  living  voice,  a  breathing  harmony, 
A  bodiless  enjoyment,  born  and  dying 
,  With  the  blest  Tone  that  made  me." 


Religion  and  Art.  '^Z'S 

Music  is  the  food  of  the  soul  in  all  its  most 
exalted  moods.  No  other  art  has  such  power  to 
minister  to  the  sublime  dreams  and  limitless  de- 
sires of  the  heart  which  aspires  to  God  ;  and  there- 
fore is  it  held  that  the  man  who  has  not  music  in 
himself  is  fit  only  for  base  purposes  and  is  but 
sluggish  earth.  Without  its  softening  and  spiritual- 
izing influence  we  grow  wooden  and  coarse.  At  its 
call  the  universal  harmonies  of  nature  stir  within 
us — "  birds,  voices,  instruments,  winds,  waters,  all 
agree." 

"  I  was  all  ear. 
And  took  in  strains  that  might  create  a  soul 
Under  the  ribs  of  death." 

He  who  cultivates  music,  said  the  ancients,  imi- 
tates the  gods  ;  and  therefore  Plato  wrote  that  "  we 
must  not  judge  of  music  by  the  pleasure  it  gives, 
nor  prefer  that  whose  only  object  is  pleasure,  but 
that  which  in  itself  bears  a  resemblance  to  the 
beautiful." 

It  was,  St.  Augustine  says,  sweet  psalmody 
which  made  the  lives  of  the  monks  of  old  so  har- 
monious ;  and  St.  Columba,  as  in  far-off  lona  he 
dreamed  of  Erin,  thought  nothing  there  so  lovely 
as  the  winds  that  sighed  among  the  oak-groves, 
and  the  songs  of  the  birds,  and  the  monks  who 
sang  like  the  birds. 

There  is  doubtless  a  music  as  vast  as  creation, 
embracing  all  sounds,  all  noises  in  their  numberless 
combinations,  and  rising  from  the  bosom  of  discord* 
in    boundless   and    harmonious   swell  —  the   hymn 
which  the  universe  chants  to  God.     From  the  dew- 


334  Religion  and  Art. 

drop  that  murmurs  its  inward  delight  as  it  kisses 
the  rose-leaf,  to  the  deep  and  infinite  voice  of  the 
ocean,  sounding  like  the  heart-pant  of  creation  for 
rest;  from  the  reed  that  sighs  upon  the  river-bank, 
to  the  sad  and  solemn  wail  of  the  primeval  forest ; 
from  the  bee  that  sings  upon  the  wing  among  the 
flowers,  to  the  lion  who  goeth  forth  into  the  desert 
alone  and  awakens  the  sleeping  echoes  of  the  ever- 
lasting hills  ;  from  the  nightingale  who  disburdens 
his  full  throat  of  all  its  music,  to  man,  whose  very- 
soul  rises  on  the  palpitatin-g  bosom  of  song  from 
world  to  world  up  to  God's  own  heaven — all  nature 
is  vocal  in  a  divine  concert.  **  There  is  music  in 
all  things,  if  men  had  ears." 

As  the  numberless  ideas  which  are  the  forms  of 
our  knowledge  are  but  the  broken  rays  which  in 
the  mind  of  God  combine  to  create  the  pure  white 
light  of  truth  and  are  one,  so  the  infinite  variety 
of  sounds  rises  up  to  him  and  is  harmony. 

"  From  harmony,  from  heavenly  harmony. 
This  universal  frame  began. 
From  harmony  to  harmony 
Through  all  the  compass  of  the  notes  it  ran, 
The  diapason  closing  full  in  man." 

The  soul's  most  transparent  veil  is  the  human 
voice,  in  whose  true  accent  we  best  catch  a  man's 
real  self;  since  modulation  of  sound  is  the  most 
proper  expression  of  all  emotion. 

Music  gives  repose  like  prayer  or  the  presence 
of  friends,  because  it  satisfies  the  heart.  The  mind 
is  prosaic  ;  the  soul  poetic  and  musical.  Syinpho- 
nialis  ist  anima.     "  The  soul,"  said  Joubert,  "  sings 


Religion  and  Art.  335 

to  itself  of  all  beaut3\"  Silence  is  golden  only  to 
those  who  have  power  to  hear  divine  melodies — 
songs  of  angels  and  symphonies  of  heaven.  Si- 
lence is  the  setting  of  music,  its  light  and  back- 
ground ;  and  therefore  melody  is  sweetest  in  soli- 
tude— in  the  night  or  in  sacred  convent  walls  that 
shut  in  from  the  noisy,  babbling  world  souls  whose 
hearts  beat  time  to  celestial  strains  and  waft  to 
heaven  sighs  that  are  heard  of  whispering  angels. 
The  Catholic  Church  loves  to  follow  her  divine 
Founder  into  the  desert,  and  to  lift  up  her  eyes  to 
the  hills  from  whence  cometh  help.  In  solitude 
she  sings ;  her  hymns  rise  in  concert  with  the 
winds  that  sigh  through  the  oak-groves  and  faint 
upon  the  desert's  burning  sands.  She  loves  the 
mysteriousness  of  nature,  so  silent  and  so  musical, 
resting  and  thrilling  beneath  God's  brooding  spirit. 
Song  is  the  voice  of  prayer,  which  is  the  breathing 
of  the  soul  in  God's  presence.  Did  not  the  angels 
sing  when  Christ  was  born,  and  shall  man  be  dumb 
now  that  he  lives  and  conquers  and  is  adored  ? 
God  is  essential  harmony,  the  works  of  his  hand 
are  harmonious,  and  his  great'  precept  is  Love, 
which  is  the  source  and  soul  and  highest  expres- 
sion of  harmony.  The  soul  that  loves  sings  for 
joy  and  gratitude. 

What  divine  and  celestial  accents  has  the  church 
not  found  to  speak  her  love  and  sorrow,  her  faith 
and  hope ! 

What  sound  more  heavenly  does  hill  or  vale 
prolong  or  multiply  than  the  voice  of  the  bell,  fill- 
ing all  the  air,  far  and  near,  with  benediction,  until, 


336  Religion  a7id  Art. 

as  the  last  peal  dies  away,  heaven  and  earth  grow 
still  and  the  Lord's  day  is  sanctified  ?  It  has  a 
human  sense  and  sympathy.  Now  it  rings  out 
strong  and  clear  like  a  shout  from  the  heart  of  a 
boy  ;  and  now  its  mellow  notes  dwell  and  linger 
like  sweet  memories  of  childhood.  In  the  solemn 
night  it  seems  God's  warning  voice  ;  and  then,  piti- 
less as  fate,  it  beats  with  iron  stroke  the  hours  that 
make  the  little  life  of  man. 

The  organ,  the  master-instrument,  is  the  voice 
of  the  Christian  Church,  "  the  seraph-haunted 
queen  of  harmony,"  sounding  like  an  echo  from  a 
mystic  and  hidden  world.  How  full  and  deep 
and  strong  it  rolls  out  its  great  volume  of  sound — 
an  ocean  of  melody!  Now  it  bursts  forth  with 
irresistible  power  like  the  hosts  of  stars  when  first 
they  wheeled  into  their  orbits  and  shouted  to  God  ; 
and  now,  with  a  veiled  and  mysterious  harmony,  it 
wraps  itself  around  the  soul,  shuts  out  all  noise, 
and  composes  it  to  sweet,  heavenly  contemplation. 
It  is  tender  as  a  mother's  yearning,  and  fierce  as 
the  deaf  and  raging  sea  ;  sad  as  angels'  sighs  for 
souls  that  are  lost^  plaintive  and  pitiful  as  the  cry 
of  those  who  in  purgatorial  fires  cleanse  their  sins  ; 
and  then  its  notes  faint  and  die,  until  we  hear  their 
echoes  from  the  eternal  shore  where  they  grow  for 
ever  and  for  ever.  With  the  falling  day  we  enter 
the  great  cathedral's  sacred  gloom,  and  at  once 
are  in  a  vast  solitude.  The  huge  pillars  rise  in 
giant  strength,  upholding  the  high  vault  already 
shrouded  in  the  gathering  darkness,  and  silence 
sits  mute   in   the  wide   aisle.     Suddenly  we    have 


Religion  and  Art. 


oo, 


been  carried  into  another  world,  peopled  with  other 
beings.  We  cease  to  note  the  passage  of  time, 
and  earth,  with  its  garish  light  and  distracting 
noises,  has  become  a  dream.  As  the  eye  grows 
accustomed  to  the  gloom  we  are  able  to  observe 
the  massive  building.  Its  walls  rise  like  the  sides 
of  a  steep  mountain,  and  in  the  aisles  there  is  the 
loneliness  and  mystery  of  deep  valleys  into  which 
the  sunlight  never  falls.  From  these  adamantine 
flancs  countless  beings  start  forth,  until  the  whole 
edifice  is  peopled  with  fantastic  forms,  upon  which 
falls  the  mystic  light,  reflected  from  the  counte- 
nances of  angels,  patriarchs,  apostles,  virgins,  mar- 
tyrs, who  from  celestial  windows  look  down  upon 
this  new-born  world.  In  the  distance  we  see  the 
glimmering  taper  that  burns  before  God's  presence, 
and  then  suddenly  a  great  volume  of  sound,  like 
the  divine  breath  infusing  life  into  these  inanimate 
objects,  rolls  over  us,  and  every  stone  from  pave- 
ment to  vaulted  roof  thrills  and  vibrates ;  each 
sculptured  image  and  pictured  saint  is  vocal  ;  and 
from  on  high  the  angels  lend  their  voices,  until 
the  soul,  trembling  on  the  wings  of  hope  and  love, 
is  borne  upward  with  this  heavenly  harmony,  and, 
entranced  in  prayer,  worships  the  Invisible  alone. 

In  no  art  is  the  influence  of  the  Christian  religion 
more  discernible  than  in  painting ;  and  here,  as 
elsewhere,  its  dominant  characteristic  is  spirituality 
— the  placing  the  idea  above  the  form.  It  gave  to 
art  the  most  exalted  ideals — Christ  and  his  immacu- 
late Mother;  and  the  necessary  effect  of  the  con- 
templation of  these  models  was  the  subordina- 
28 


^^S  Religion  and  A rt. 

tioii  of  phj'sical  to  moral  beauty.  It  could  no 
longer  be  the  artist's  aim  to  paint  a  comely 
and  finely-formed  body,  but  a  body  ennobled, 
purified,  and  spiritualized  by  a  generous,  unselfish, 
and  sympathetic  soul.  A  pure  faith  gave  ex- 
alted aims,  fixed  purpose,  and  seriousness  to 
art.  It  was  no  longer  sufficient  to  be  elegant  and 
graceful ;  it  was  necessary,  above  all,  to  speak  to 
the  mind  and  the  soul.  All  levity  and  frivolity 
were  banished.  A  noble  earnestness  illumined  the 
human  countenance,  softened  only  by  a  smile  of 
loving  tenderness  such  as  is  seen  on  the  Virgin's 
face  as  she  contemplates  the  divine  Infant  repos- 
ing in  her  arms.  We  cannot  think  of  Christ  as 
laughing  or  entering  into  gay  or  lively  discourse  ; 
nor  can  we  so  think  of  his  Mother.  There  is  self- 
satisfaction  and  egotism  in  all  merriment.  The 
love  and  pity  of  the  God-man  admit  not  the  play 
of  childish  joy  upon  his  sacred  features — we  catch 
there  the  expression  of  repose  Avhich  comes  of 
strength;  of  sweet,  sad  sympathy,  of  ineffable 
goodness,  yet  mingled  with  the  awful  earnestness 
of  him  who  is  Judge  as  well  as  Saviour,  but  whose 
justice  is  tempered  with  mercy.  In  the  Blessed 
Virgin  there  is  a  more  human  sweetness  and  light ; 
a  grace  that  seems  even  more  tender  because  her 
only  office  is  that  of  love.  Under  this  high  influ- 
ence art  acquired  new  power  and  seemed  to  feel 
Christ's  blessing — the  peace  which  the  world  knows 
not.  It  learned  the  secret  of  repose,  without 
which  it  has  been  said  no  work  of  art  can  be  great, 
and  which  is  the  measure  of  all  artistic  excellence  : 


Religion  and  Art.  339 

"  The  life  where  hope  and  memory  are  as  one  ; 
Earth  quiet  and  unchanged  ;  the  human  soul 
Consistent  in  self  rule  ;  and  heaven  revealed 
To  meditation,  in  that  quietness." 

Purity — the  quality  of  soul  most  nearly  akin  to 
the  spiritual  and  divine  nature — became  an  essential 
requisite  of  human  beauty  and  lifted  Christian  art 
into  a  world  unknown  to  paganism.  The  material 
universe  was  looked  upon  as  symbolical  of  a  high- 
er and  nobler  mode  of  existence,  so  that  the  body 
itself  in  the  artist's  contemplation  was  spiritual- 
ized—grew light  and  aerial,  such  as  St.  Paul  de- 
scribes it  rising  from  death  incorruptible  and  im- 
mortal. From  this  type  the  Christian  artist  de- 
rived the  angelical  form,  as  seen,  for  example, 
in  Perugino's  Michael,  the  Archangel — "  with  his 
triple  crest  of  traceless  plumes  unshaken  in  heaven, 
his  hand  fallen  on  his  crossleted  sword,  the  truth 
girdle  binding  his  undinted  armor ;  God  has  put 
his  power  upon  him,  resistless  radiance  is  on  his 
limbs,  no  lines  are  there  of  earthly  strength,  no 
traces  on  the  divine  features  of  earthly  anger; 
trustful  and  thoughtful,  fearless  but  full  of  love, 
incapable  except  of  the  repose  of  eternal  conquest, 
vessel  and  instrument  of  Omnipotence,  filled  like 
a  cloud  with  the  victor  light,  the  dust  of  principal- 
ities and  powers  beneath  his  feet,  the  murmur  of 
hell  against  him  heard  by  his  spiritual  ear  like  the 
winding  of  a  shell  on  the  far-off  sea- shore." 

The  body  itself  aspires  to  a  spiritual  state,  and 
seeks  to  harmonize  its  gross  elements  with  the 
soul,  to   bring  back  life's  rosy  dawn,  when    both 


340  Religion  and  A  ri. 

were  one,  like  sweet  music  set  to  noble  words. 
The  eye  of  faith  sees  more  clearly  the  condi- 
tions and  possibilities  of  the  diviner  life — ,catches 
glimpses  of  things  unutterable,  too  bright  "  to 
hit  the  sense  of  human  sight."  The  communion 
of  saints  exists ;  angels  watch  over  us ;  the  loved 
•who  have  gone  before  us  are  not  parted  from 
us  ;  prayer  rises  like  fragrant  incense  to  heaven, 
falls  like  dew  upon  souls  who  purge  their  guilt  in 
unknown  Avorlds.  This  high  companionship  with 
things  unseen  makes  flesh  and  blood  a  wearisome 
burden  to  the  soul,  and  it  cries  out,  "  Who  will  free 
me  from  this  body  of  death?"  The  noblest  na- 
tures, no  longer  able  to  endure  contact  with  the 
crowd  sunk  in  sensuous  indulgence,  flee  to  the  de- 
sert ;  in  solitude  find  the  untainted  air  of  God's 
presence  ;  shake  from  the  free  Christian  spirit  all 
jTianacles  of  deadly  servitude  ;  and,  rebaptized  in 
silence  and  prayer,  rise,  like  eagles  new-bathed  in 
pcean,  to  purer  worlds. 

."  Hpw  beautiful  your  presence,  how  benign, 

Servants  of  God  !  who  not  a  thought  will  share 
■  With  the  vain  world. 

More  sweet  than  odors  cajjght  by  him  who  sails 
Near  spicy  shores  of  Araby  the  blest, 
A  thousand  times  more  exquisitely  sweet 
The  freight  of  holy  feeling  which  we  m^( 
In  thoughtful  moments  wafted  by  the  gales 
from    fields  where    good  men  walk   or  bowers  wherein 
they  rest." 

This  higher  life  created  a  higher  art.     This   is 
evident  in  the  earliest  records  of  Christian  art.     In 


Religion  and  Art  341 

the  paintings  of  the  Catacombs  there  is  a  celestial 
purity,  a  translucence  of  soul,  a  predominance  of 
spirit  o^er  matter,  of  faith  over  sense,  which  ren- 
der these  works,  in  spite  of  technical  defects,  infi- 
nitely superior  to  all  art  which  draws  its  inspira- 
tion from  less  exalted  ideals.  Here  art  is  pure 
and  noble,  because  here  is  a  sublime  religious  faith 
which  gives  to  human  life  a  transcendental  and 
priceless  dignity  and  worth.  In  the  simplest  and 
meekest  face  that  looks  upon  us  from  those  sub- 
terranean walls  we  behold  th^  power  of  the  faith 
which  overcomes  the  world,  which  can  give  to  a 
timid  maiden  a  strength  that  conquers  armies  and 
empires,  which  makes  death  sweet  as  the  breath  of 
morning,  and  through  defeat  rises  ever  to  diviner 
victories,  triumphing  in  its  martyrdom.  It  is  truth 
and  purity  and  love,  habited  in  weakness  and  pov- 
erty, that  rises  up  to  strike  dumb  the  loud  and  bla- 
tant vv'orld,  with  its  shams  and  shows,  carnal  souls 
and  hollow  hearts. 

On  the  walls  of  these  hidden  cities,  in  whose 
dark  and  silent  streets  we  can  almost  feel  the  pre- 
sence of  the  generations  of  martyrs,  of  whom  the 
world  was  not  worthy,  and  who  in  the  narrow  way 
walked  towards  the  life  and  the  light,  there  is 
the  sublimest  symbolical  teaching.  The  Phoenix, 
rising  from  its  ashes,  proclaims  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  the  triumph  of  spirit  over  matter,  and  the 
final  resurrection  ;  the  three  youths  in  the  fiery 
furnace  declare  that  out  of  the  jaws  of  hell  God 
delivers  those  who  put  their  trust  in  him  ;  and  Plia- 
rao's  army,    swallowed   up   by  the  devouring  sea, 


342  Religion  and  Art. 

shout  from  tlie  mad  turmoil  that  God  only  is  great, 
that  it  is  vain  to  trust  in  princes,  that  they  who 
walk  by  faith  securely  tread  where  the  mig^hty  fall. 
Here  Abraham  so  believes  in  God  against  the 
whole  earth  that  he  lifts  the  knife  to  slay  his  only 
son  ;  from  hard  and  flinty  rock  Moses  strikes  the 
water  of  life  ;  and  Isaias,  with  keen  vision,  piercing 
the  thick  veil  that  hides  the  future  from  mortal 
eyes,  sees  God's  Virgin  Mother  rising  like  a  fair 
and  lonely  star  upon  the  ebon  brow  of  night,  light- 
ing a  sin-darkened  v^orld ;  or  the  Good  Shepherd, 
on  shoulders  bruised  by  the  cross  of  love,  bears 
home  the  sheep  that  had  strayed  from  the  fold  and 
was  lost. 

In  all  this  there  is  high  art,  and  greatness  of 
style,  because  the  subjects  of  thought  involve  uni- 
versal interests  and  profound  passions. 

Besides  noble  subjects  and  seriousness  of  pur- 
pose, the  Christian  religion  gave  to  art  exalted 
aims.  It  became  holy  and  sought  to  sanctify  men. 
Artistic  fraternities  were  religious  associations. 
"  By  the  grace  of  God,"  said  the  Siennese  painters 
in  1355,  "  we  are  to  rule  men,  who  know  not  letters, 
manifestors  of  the  miraculous  things  worked  by 
virtue  and  in  virtue  of  the  holy  faith ;  and  our 
faith  is  founded  principally  in  adoring  and  be- 
lieving one  God  in  the  Trinity — a  God  of  infinite 
power,  infinite  wisdom,  infinite  love  and  mercy." 

"We  aim,"  said  Bufifalmacco,  "at  naught  else 
than  to  make  saints  by  our  frescoes  and  pictures  ; 
and,  in  spite  of  the  devils,  to  make  men  more  devout 
and  holy." 


Religion  and  A  rl.  343 

All  those  early  painters,  so  justly  called  the 
"  great  masters,"  worked  in  faith,  with  religious 
sincerity,  without  thought  of  gold  or  sordid  motive, 
caring  not  to  please  the  vicious  taste  of  an  igno- 
rant public,  but  only  to  approve  themselves  to  Him 
who  is  the  great  and  eternal  artist. 

What  delicacy,  purity,  and  devotion  are  traceable 
in  every  line  of  Giotto's  works  ! — the  oldest,  and  in 
some  sense  the  greatest,  of  the  Italian  masters. 

Cennini,  an  artist  of  tlie  early  part  of  the  fif- 
teenth century,  and  widely  known  through  his 
Treatise  on  Painting,  insists  especially  in  this  work 
on  the  moral  discipline  required  to  form  the  Chris- 
tian artist.  He  must  abstain  from  all  sinful  indul- 
gence, eat  sparingly,  remain  often  in  solitude,  learn 
self-restraint ;  and,  since  he  is  to  be  a  teacher  of 
holiness,  he  must  himself  be  holy,  and  to  this  end 
must  go  regularly  to  confession  and  communion. 
Cennini  declares  that  the  use  of  good  colors, 
especially  in  painting  the  Blessed  Virgin,  is  a  re- 
ligious duty,  and  he  adds  that  if  the  painter  be 
underpaid,  "  God  and  Our  Lady  will  reward  him 
in  body  and  soul." 

Taddeo  Gaddi,  the  godson  and  pupil  of  Giotto, 
who  after  the  death  of  the  master  was  appointed 
to  complete  the  Campanile  of  Florence,  when 
dying  consigned  his  son  to  Casentino  with  the 
injunction  to  teach  him  the  practice  of  art  and  the 
duties  of  a  Christian. 

Lippo  Dalmasio,  a  Carmelite  monk,  never  painted 
a  religious  subject  without  preparing  himself  by 
meditation,  prayer,  and  fasting ;  and  so  wonderful 


344  Religion  and  Art. 

was  his  success  that  Guido  Reni  could  not  contem- 
plate his  pictures  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  without 
falling  into  a  kind  of  ecstasy,  and  Pope  Clement 
VIII.  declared  that  he  had  never  seen  images 
more  devout  or  that  touched  his  heart  nearer.  He 
refused  resolutely  to  touch  money,  but  painted 
solely  for  the  love  of  God  and  his  blessed  Mother. 

Fra  Angelico,  the  most  religious  and  heavenly 
of  all  artists,  painted  Christ  and  Mary  only  on  his 
knees ;  and  when  engaged  on  the  Crucifixion  a 
flood  of  tears  burst  from  his  eyes.  He  prayed  con- 
stantly, smiled  seldom,  wept  often,  and  never  har- 
bored an  impure  thought.  His  head  rested  on  the 
heart  of  Jesus,  and  nothing  had  power  to  disturb 
him.  All  men  have  agreed  to  call  him  Angel  and 
Blessed.  In  his  Virgin  we  behold'  the  very  chas- 
tity and  beauty  of  heaven  incarnate,  and  of  his 
angels  Michael  Angelo  said  that  no  man  could 
paint  them  who  had  not  seen  them  in  some  higher 
world.  Only  the  pure  of  heart  can  depict  the  pur- 
est and  sublimest  sentiments,  and  they  who  paint 
Christ  and  his  angels  must  be  Christ-like  and  an- 
gelical :  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  of  heart,  for  they 
shall  see  God." 

No  one,  while  looking  upon  the  paintings  of 
Beato  Angelico,  can  harbor  a  revengeful  or  lustful 
thought.  They  influence  us  like  the  presence  of 
holy  and  noble  natures.  They  are  the  exponents 
of  Spirit,  and  we  cannot  contemplate  them  with- 
out inwardly  shrinking  from  whatever  is  sensual. 
There  is  in  them  a  tenderness  and  repose,  a  love 
and  peace,  which,  far  above  the  storm-clouds  and 


Religion  and  Art.  345 

blinding  dust  of  earth,  breathe  the  air  of  heav^en. 
Not  less  than  in  the  tone  and  accent  of  a  saintly- 
man  do  we  catch  in  these  Madonnas  and  cherubs 
the  hidden  secret  of  the  inward,  diviner  life.  Faith 
and  love  inspired  Angelico,  and  one  who  drank 
from  fountains  less  pure  or  deep  could  not  have 
unveiled  to  mortal  eyes  such  celestial  loveliness. 
The  religious  artist  makes  art  religious.  Never 
yet  was  there  true  poet  who  did  not  believe  in  his 
wildest  dreams,  nor  can  an  artist  paint  what  he 
believes  not  to  exist.  All  art  which  is  insincere  is 
false ;  and  deep,  abiding  sincerity  can  come  only 
of  religious  inspiration.  Without  this  the  love  of 
the  beautiful,  the  pursuit  of  art  for  its  own  sake, 
degenerates  into  dilettanteism. 

The  great  religious  artists  painted  for  the  people, 
for  believing  souls,  who  were  eager  not  to  admire, 
but  to  worship,  and  who  longed  for  symbols  of 
their  faith.  Their  masterpieces  were  never  made 
to  hang  on  the  walls  of  the  wealthy,  to  be  gazed  at 
as  objects  of  curiosity  or  artistic  skill.  Demos- 
thenes spoke  not  with  more  earnestness  or  deep 
conviction  than  they  painted.  They  were  able, 
because  they  believed. 

To  ask  with  Ruskin  whether  art  has  done  good 
to  religion  is  to  put  a  meaningless  question.  If  it 
has  not  served  religion,  it  is  condemned  ;  for  man's 
eternal  and  highest  interests  are  religious.  It  is, 
moreover,  impossible  that  a  great  and  living  faith 
should  not  symbolize  itself  in  some  great  art. 
David  sang  and  danced  before  the  ark,  and  in  all 
time  the  soul,  feeling  God's  presence,  will  be  tor- 
2S» 


346  Religion  and  Art. 

mented  by  a  voiceless  thought  till  art  gives  it 
relief.  All  true  prayer  is  poetic  and  musical,  and 
to  whine  and  drawl  when  we  supplicate  God  is  as 
little  proper  as  to  stand  bolt  upright  and  speak  to 
him  as  though  he  were  some  common  mortal  with 
official  patronage  to  bestow. 

Whosoever  loves  longs  for  poetry,  music,  song, 
pictures,  flowers,  or  whatsoever  else  is  beautiful, 
though  the  meanest  object  is  ennobled  if  it  be  but 
associated  with  this  passion.  Religion  is  love, 
higher  and  diviner,  more  real  and  all-enduring  than 
any  other  —  a  love  which  can  make  the  desert 
bloom,  people  solitudes,  light  the  dark-vaulted 
dungeon,  make  slavery  sweet,  disease  a  pleasant 
companion,  and  death  a  welcome  guest.  To  him 
who  feels  this  divine  ardor  kingdoms  and  princi- 
palities are  but  the  dust  he  treads  upon  ;  fame, 
discordant  babble  ;  and  all  the  ways  and  hopes  of 
the  world  vain  and  purposeless  as  the  rambles  of  a 
child.  To  him  naught  is  but  what  is  eternal ;  and 
in  all  corruptible  things  he  sees  an  image  of  God's 
immortal  glory.  From  basest  matter  his  faith 
forms  wings  with  Avhich  he  would  raise  himself  to 
companionship  with  Heaven.  He  longs  for  sym- 
bols which,  by  expressing,  however  poorly,  his 
sense  of  God's  presence,  may  strengthen  and  de- 
fine his  faith  and  hope  and  love.  His  strong  desire 
creates,  religion  is  clothed  with  beauty,  and  art  is 
born. 

Protestantism  has  produced  no  religious  art,  and 
no  other  argument  is  needed  to  prove  that  it  is 
without    deep    religious    faith.     Its   life  is  feverish 


Religion  and  Art.  347 

and  artificial,  not  profound  and  interior.  Its  en- 
ergy is  drawn  from  strife  and  opposition,  dissen- 
sions and  controversies.  It  is  tormented  by  the 
spirit  of  unrest,  it  has  no  peace,  and  therefore  can 
have  no  art.  It  is  critical,  and  therefore  without 
reverence  ;  it  is  self-conscious,  and  therefore  with- 
out humility  ;  it  is  worldly,  and  therefore  without 
exalted  ideals  ;  it  is  uncontemplative,  and  there- 
fore without  tenderness. 

Having  not  within  itself  the  deep    fountains  of 
faith  and  love  from  which  art  draws  its  life,  it  by 
instinct   strove   to    shut   religion   within    the   soul. 
It  turned  from  all  the  Christian  glories  and   hero- 
isms of  the  past,  virginities  and  martyrdoms,  strug- 
gles and  triumphs,  defeats  and  victories,  feeling  it 
had  no  part  in  them.     It   became   censorious  and 
lost    sympathy ;  saw   the    evil,  but  passed    by  the 
good  with  averted  look.     When    it  was   ascetic  it 
was  harsh  and  forbidding ;    when  it  was  self-indul- 
gent it  was  vulgar  and  coarse  ;  when  it  was  enthu- 
siastic it  was  Avild  and  fanatic.      It  has  no  ideals. 
Its  very  founders  refused  to  lend  themselves  to  the 
purposes  of  art.     Luther  was  violent  and    gross  ; 
Henry,  cruel  and  debauched  ;  Calvin,  heartless  and 
vindictive  ;  Knox,  coarse  and  barbarous.     Its  rela- 
tions .to  womanhood  were  no  better.     It  despised 
virginity,  and  degraded  marriage  by  destroying  its 
sacramental    character   and   by  admitting   divorce. 
Luther  violated  the  sacredness  of  woman  consecrat- 
ed by  chastity,  and  Henry  alternated  between  lust 
and  murder.     From  the  Virgin   Mother  it  turned 
away  with  horror,  thinking  to  honor  Jesus  by  scorn- 


348  Religion  and  Art. 

ing  her  who  bore  him.  It  never  understood  that 
imagination,  not  less  than  intellect,  is  the  organ  of 
theGodlike,  or  that  the  visible  universe  is  the  body- 
ing forth  of  the  invisible.  By  an  instinct  as  shallow 
as  it  is  opposed  to  art  it  shrank  from  mystery  and  en- 
tered on  the  fatal  way  that  leads  to  scepticism  and 
materialism.  To  man  nothing  is  divine  that  is  not 
clothed  in  mystery.  Pluck  away  the  fair,  cluster- 
ing flowers  that  over-wreath,  protect,  and  sweeten 
man's  life,  filling  it  with  charm  and  wonder,  and 
there  remains  but  a  bare  carcass  fit  for  Darwinian 
experimentation.  Our  God  is  a  hidden  God — 
Christ  is  seen  now  no  more,  except  in  those  who 
lead  with  him  the  silent,  secret  life  which  the 
animal  eye  perceiveth  not.  He  comes  to  us  not 
openly,  as  once  he  walked  in  Galilee,  but  veiled 
in  sacramental  rites  and  sacred  symbols.  In  the 
Breaking  of  the  Bread  we  know  him,  and  in  the 
silence  of  deep  meditation,  when  the  door  is  shut 
and  the  windows  closed,  he  stands  before  us.  God 
has  symbolized  himself  in  all  the  universe  ;  the 
heavens  are  his  vesture,  the  earth  is  his  footstool, 
and  from  sun  and  moon  and  star  he  speaks  to 
man  ;  a  gleam  of  his  countenance  is  reflected  from 
the  circumambient  eternity  on  this  little  islet  of  time. 
And  what  does  the  church  in  all  her  worship  but 
imitate,  as  best  she  maj'-,  God's  own  work?  What 
is  the  pomp  and  splendor  of  her  ceremonial  com- 
pared with  the  glories  of  nature  ?  Or  how  can  it 
be  wrong  in  her  who  knows  not  the  guilty  folly  of 
Manicheism  to  seek  to  raise  man  to  heaven  by 
the  chords  that  bind  him  to  earth? 


Religion  and  Art.  349 

Then  she  is  the  mother  of  the  people  ;  comes 
nearer  to  their  hearts  than  any  other,  as  Jesus 
alone  loves  the  poor ;  and  for  them  criticism  and 
science  are  not,  but  only  faith  and  hope  and  love. 
They  want  no  lecture-hall,  with  its  bare  walls  and 
prosing  teacher,  but  a  temple  of  religion — the 
home  of  the  multitude,  where  every  art  and  noble 
gift  of  man  bows  in  homage  to  God's  presence. 
Therefore  must  she  build  for  Christ  and  his  poor, 
the  temple  of  majesty  and  glory,  the  democratic 
palace  of  the  people,  where  the  beggar  and  the 
prince  kneel  side  by  side — a  basilica  prouder  than 
that  of  kings,  where  all  the  arts  are  wedded  and 
find  a  sanctuary  in  the  divine  harmony  which  re- 
ligion alone  can  consecrate  and  make  eternal. 

"  This  long-roofed  vista  penetrate — but  see, 
One  after  one,  its  tablets,  that  unfold 
The  whole  design  of  Scripture  history, 
From  the  first  tasting  of  the  fatal  tree 
Till  the  bright  star  appeared  in  Eastern  skies 
Announcing  One  was  born  mankind  to  free  ; 
His  acts,  his  wrongs,  his  sacrifice  : 
Lessons  for  every  heart,  a  Bible  for  all  eyes." 

Whether  or  not  religion  need  the  service  of  art, 
art  certainly  can  never  flourish  except  in  her  ser- 
vice ;  for  of  all  things  it  requires  the  consecration 
of  an  exalted  and  unselfish  purpose.  He  who 
works  for  money  or  praise  may  work  cunningly 
and  admirably,  but  never  divinely.  Between  art 
and  money  or  men's  praise  there  is  no  equivalence, 
as  there  is  none  between  mind  and  matter,  beauty 
and  use.     Nor  is  there  inspiration  in  art  for  art's 


350      "  Religion  and  Art. 

sake.  The  phrase  is  meaningless ;  for,  if  art  is 
not  the  symbol  of  a  divine  reality,  it  is  frivolous 
and  childish.  To  be  great  and  worthy,  it  must  be 
born  on  the  holy  mountain  where  God's  law  is 
given,  and  in  the  temple  where  he  is  worshipped. 
As  soon  as  men  stop  to  think  whether  it  is  dear, 
or  what  use  there  is  in  it,  its  soul  is  fled  and  ma- 
terialism smothers  all  spiritual  faith.  It  is  of  no 
avail  to  preach  to  those  "  who  love  the  corn  they 
grind,  and  the  grapes  they  crush,  better  than  the 
gardens  of  the  angels  upon  the  slopes  of  Eden." 
If  man  is  only  an  animal,  and  the  world  his  manger, 
let  him  eat  the  hay  and  the  thistle  and  be  blest. 
If  there  is  no  good  in  holy  thoughts,  in  limitless 
desires,  in  unutterable  longings  for  the  highest 
and  the  best,  in  the  faith  that  trusts  that  God  is 
Love  and  is  just,  in  the  sweet  hope  that  in  a  better 
world  there  is  a  more  restful  life,,  then  indeed  may 
men  hold  that  God's  temple  is  but  a  mill  or  bank, 
and  should  be  taxed  lest  it  be  made  beautiful. 

If  the  people  who  work  and  suffer,  begrimed 
with  the  dust  and  smoke  and  soil  of  earth,  shut 
out  from  companionship  with  nature,  are  to  have 
no  home  of  the  soul,  no  place  of  repose,  no  taber- 
nacle of  God's  presence,  no  symbol  of  heaven, 
where  every  art  conspires  to  raise  the  mind  and 
heart  to  the  invisible  and  higher  world,  then  let 
the  law  make  it  impossible  for  them  to  retain  the 
churches  which  they  have  built ;  and  God  pity 
them  !  He  who  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth 
is  not  shut  up  in  houses  built  by  the  hands  of  man. 
He  dwells  in  his  own   immensity;  the  universe  is 


Religion  and  A  rt.  3  5  i 

his  temple  ;  the  sun  the  inextinguishable  lamp 
that  burns  before  his  presence  ;  the  stars  the 
lights  that  shine  upon  his  altar;  and  in  this  vast 
and  divine  temple  all  creatures  adore  him  and 
proclaim  his  glory  ;  and  the  spheres,  as  they  re- 
volve, sing  in  his  praise  an  immortal  hymn.  God 
needs  not  the  temples  which  we  build  to  him  ;  of 
man  and  his  works  he  is  for  ever  independent. 
But  we  who  crave  for  God,  and  who,  without  him, 
perish  like  the  brute  and  have  no  hope,  must  have 
sanctuaries,  religious  rites  and  symbols,  to  prevent 
the  heavenly  spirit  of  faith  and  love  from  escaping 
and  losing  itself  in  boundless  and  empty  space. 
From  the  crowd  the  thought  of  God  is  banished  ; 
men  dig  into  the  earth  and  sail  the  seas  for  food 
and  raiment;  they  would  make  the  sun  and  moon 
pull  their  wagons ;  turn  all  nature  to  low  uses,  and 
beneath  the  grinding  wheels  of  mechanism  crush 
the  soul.  Let  us  at  least  leave  to  man  God's  tem- 
ple— the  great  soul-symbol,  where  he  can  still 
breathe  the  air  of  heaven,  and  weep  and  pray, 

"  The  spirit  of  antiquity — enshrined 
In  sumptuous  buildings,  vocal  in  sweet  song, 
In  picture,  speaking  with  heroic  tongue, 
And  with  devout  solemnities  entwined — 
Strikes  to  .the  seat  of  grace  within  the  mind." 

Did  not  He  who  is  for  ever  the  founder  of  the 
religion  of  the  soul,  and  only  Saviour  of  man,  ful- 
fil all  holy  observances?  He  loved  the  beauty  of 
God's  house,  was  often  in  the  temple,  kept  fast 
and  feast,  was  circumcised,  sent  the  lepers  to  the 


352  Religion  aiid  Art. 

priests  for  the  sin-offering,  paid  the  temple-tax, 
and  performed  all  other  offices  of  a  ceremonial 
worship.  He  received  the  baptism  of  John  ;  he 
breathed  upon  his  apostles ;  he  rubbed  the  mud- 
paste  upon  the  eyes  of  the  blind  Ynan  ;  he  com- 
manded the  anointing  with  oil.  Of  course,  while 
the  blessed  Saviour  walked  among  men,  and  for  a 
long  time  after  he  had  returned  to  the  Father, 
Christian  worship  was  of  the  simplest  kind.  No 
various  ceremonies,  no  rich  music,  no  high  cathe- 
drals, no  mystic  vestments,  no  solemn  altars,  no 
marbles  or  metals  or  jewels,  or  woods  of  cost,  or 
fine  linen,  added  splendor  to  the  celebration  of  the 
divine  mysteries.  Christ  instituted  the  most  holy 
Sacrament  of  his  real  presence  in  an  "  upper  room" 
of  a  hired  house  ;  in  an  "  upper  room  "  the  Holy 
Ghost  descended  upon  the  Apostles,  waiting  and 
watching  in  silence  and  in  prayer  ;  in  an  "  upper 
room  "  St.  Paul  preached  in  Troas  ;  at  Philippi  he 
led  the  faithful  outside  the  city  to  the  river-bank 
where  prayer  was  wont  to  be  made  ;  and  with 
Silas  he  sang  hymns  in  prison.  St.  Peter  was 
praying  on  the  house-top  Avhen  he  saw  the  vision, 
and  Philip  baptized  the  Ethiopian  eunuch  in  the 
desert.  Having  no  power  or  liberty  to  build 
churches  to  God,  the  apostolic  Christians  made 
the  whole  world  his  temple  and  offered  to  him 
everywhere  the  sacrifice  of  noble  lives  and  heroic 
deaths.  Their  immediate  successors  were  driven 
from  the  face  of  the  earth  into  caverns,  tombs, 
and  subterranean  galleries ;  but  when  from  the 
darkness  and    the    death    of  the    Catacombs   they 


Rcligiojt  a7id  Art.  353 

issued  forth  like  Christ  from  the  grave,  triumphant 
and  immortal,  God  inspired  them,  as  the  Israelites 
of  old  who  had  passed  through  the  parted  waters 
and  the  desert  into  the  Land  of  Promise,  to  build 
temples  not  unworthy  of  the  faith  which  had  con- 
quered the  world. 

In  nothing  is  the  spirit  of  a  religion  more  clearly- 
seen  than  in  the  style  of  its  sacred  edifices.  The 
character  of  the  temple  is  determined  by  our  con- 
ception of  God  and  of  the  service  which  we  owe 
him.  The  Greeks,  plunged  in  mad  delight  in  the 
enjoyments  of  this  life  and  unconscious  of  a  higher 
existence,  thought  their  gods  were  stronger  men, 
with  greater  passions  and  more  ardent  cravings  for 
indulgence.  Consequently  their  temples  take  the 
form  of  human  dwellings,  of  wonderful  grace  and 
symmetry,  harmony  of  lines  and  proportions;  but 
without  grandeur,  mystery,  or  sublimity.  In  the 
dark  mysteries  of  the  religion  of  ancient  Egypt 
death  is  the  predominant  thought  ;  and  its  temple 
is  a  tomb,  sad,  solitary,  motionless.  This  corre- 
spondence between  architecture  and  religious  faith 
is  most  discernible  in  the  Christian  temple,  which  is 
the  highest  symbol  of  the  universe,  as  God's  handi- 
work, ever  created  by  human  'genius.  It  is  the 
House  of  God  not  because  it  is  consecrated  to  his 
worship,  but  because  he  dwells  there  really  and 
truly  under  the  sacramental  veil ;  and  it  is  his 
divine  presence  which  gives  to  the  whole  edifice 
its  form,  its  appropriateness,  and  its  meaning,  as 
the  mind  of  God  creates,  moves,  and  harmonizes 
the  universe.     The  vital  principle  in  the  Christian 


354  Religion  and  Art. 

temple  is  the  Real  Presence.  Take  this  away  and 
it  is  a  body  without  a  soul.  Therefore  the  whole 
edifice  grows  out  of  the  tabernacle,  and  draws  from 
it  use  and  beauty,  as  from  the  heart  the  members 
are  developed  and  by  it  are  nourished.  He  is 
there — the  mysterious  and  awful  God,  but  the  God 
of  love,  of  beauty,  of  mercy.  Banished,  therefore, 
be  all  frivolity,  all  profane  mirth,  all  trivial  joy. 
Here  are  we  in  the  presence  of  infinite  mystery ; 
the  ground  is  holy,  unseen  spirits  are  adoring. 
How  the  great  vault  lifts  itself  to  heaven,  bending 
in  mighty  joy  above  the  tabernacle !  And  the 
wide  aisle  opens  out  in  limitless  expanse,  level- 
ling the  mountains  and  making  straight  the  way 
of  the  Lord.  The  temple  is  a  cross ;  its  centre 
the  tabernacle,  and  Christ  is  adored  for  ever  in  the 
divinest  symbol  of  his  love,  which  is  borne  upward 
on  aerial  spires  far  above  all  monuments  of  human 
pride,  shedding  benediction  and  gentler  life  through 
the  world's  waste.  The  whole  edifice,  and  each 
separate  part,  rises  secure  and  strong  heavenward 
like  the  flight  of  angels.  It  is  a  universal  temple, 
fit  symbol  of  a  catholic  religion.  All  nature  is 
here.  Stones,  and  metals,  and  woods  of  cost,  moss 
and  lichen,  and  all  kinds  of  grasses  and  plants  cover 
its  walls  and  entwine  themselves  around  its  col- 
umns. Reptiles,  and  monsters  of  the  deep,  birds  of 
the  air,  and  all  animals  that  walk  the  earth,  are  gath- 
ered here,  for  God  created  them  all.  And  last,  as 
in  the  world's  history,  comes  man  to  interpret  the 
mystery  and  to  be  God's  image  and  minister.  He 
gives  intelligence  and  a  voice  to  this  new  creation. 


Religion  ajid  Art.  355 


At  his  touch  the  rock  takes  a  human  form  ;  saints  and 
angels  appear  within  the  holy  place  ;  the  incense 
gives  forth  its  fragrant  breath  ;  the  great  organ, 
standing  in  lone  royalty,  utters  its  deep  and  mystic 
voice  ;  and  stone,  and  moss,  and  plant,  and  living 
things  of  earth,  air,  and  sea  join  the  choir  to  chant 
to  God  the  universal  hymn  of  praise. 

"And,  while  the  Host  is  raised,  its  elevatioa 
An  awe. and  supernatural  horror  breeds, 
And  all  the  people  bov/  their  heads  like  reeds 
To  a  soft  breeze,  in  lowly  adoration." 

This    is   the    temple    of    religion,    type    of    the 
Church  which  God  has  reared. 


THE  LIFE 


t  M.  I  J. 


ill,  Dl, 


^RCHBISHOP    OF    JBaLTIMORE, 
BY 

RT.  REV.  J.  L.  SPALDING,  D.D., 

Bishop  of  Peoria. 


CONTENTS.  . 

Chap.  I.  Ancestry— Parentage — Birth — Early  Education. 

II.  Professor  at  St.  Mary's  College — Enters  the  Seminary  at  Bardstown — Is 
sent  to  Rome. 

III.  Student  Life  in  Rome. 

IV.  Last  Year  in  Rome — Public  Defence  of  Theses  for  the  Doctor's  Cap. 

V.  Ordained  Priest — Returns  Home — Is  made  Pastor  of  the  Cathedral  in 
Hardstown — Professor  in  the  Seminarj'— '1  he  "'  Minerva." 

VI.  The  "  Catholic  Advocate  " — Religious  Journalism — Efforts  to  Extend 
its  Influence. 

VII.  President  of  St.  Joseph's  College — Pastor  of  St.  Peter's  Church  in  Lex- 
ington— Diocese  of  Nashville. 

VIII.  Dr.  Spalding  is  appointed  Vicar-General— The  Louisville  "League  "" — 
His  Labors  as  a  Lecturer  and  t  reacher. 

IX.  Popular  Objections  to  the  Church — Dr.  Spalding's  Manner  of  Answer- 

ing Them. 

X.  Appointed  Bishop  of  Lengone,  in  Part.  Infid.,  and  Coadjutor  of  Bishop 

Flaget — Death  of  Bishop  Flaget — btate  of  the  Diocese  at  the  Time 
of  Dr.  Spa  ding's  Consecration. 

XI.  State  of  the  Diocese,  continued— Bishop  Spalding's  First  Visitation — 

The  Early  Catholics  of  Kentucky. 

XII.  Retreat  of  the  Clergj- — Building  of  the  Cathedral  in  Louisville — Divi- 
sion of  the  Diocese — The  First  Plenary  Council  at  Baltimore — Des  re 
to  Secure  the  Ser\ices  of  a  Teaching  Brotherhood. 


XIII.  Visit  to  Europe — The  Xaverian  Brothers — The  American  Co'.lcge  at 
Lou  vain. 

XIV.  Re'igion  and  Nationalism — The  Know-Nothing  Conspiracy — "  Bloody 
Monday." 

XV.  The  "  Miscellanea" — Controversy  with  Professor  Morse. 

XVI,  The  Provincial  Councils  of  Cincinnati — The  Common-School  System. 

XVII.  Difxesan  Affairs — Traits    of  Character— Correspondence  with   Arch- 
bishop Kenrick. 

XVIII.  History  of  the  Reformation — Views  on  the  Duties  of  Ecclesiastics  in 
their  Relations  with  the  State — Episcopal  Labors. 

XIX.  The  Civil  War  and  the  Church  in  Kentucky — State  of  the  Diocese  of 
Louisville — Bishop  Spalding  is  appointed  to  the  See  of  Baltimore. 

XX.  Archbishop  Spalding  takes  Possession  of  His  new  Charge— Summary  of 
Important  Facts  in  the  History  of  the  Archdiocese  of  Baltimore. 

XXI.  Archbishop  Sjpalding's  First  Works  in  the  Diocese  of  Baltimore^The 
Syllabus — The  Sixth  Synod  of  Baltimore — Correspondence  on  Various 
Subjects. 

XXII.  The  Suffering  People  of  the  South — The  Diocese  of  Charleston — The 
Catholic  h'rotectory — Sermon  at  the  University  of  Notre  Dame. 

XXIII.  The  Second  Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore. 

XXIV.  Second  Plenarj'  Counojl  of  Baltimore,  continued— Appointment  of  Bish- 
ops—Parochial  Rights— Catholic  University. 

XXV.  The  Past,  the  Present,  and  the  Future. 

XXVI.  The  Emancipated  Slaves — The  Catholic  Publication  Society — The  Cen- 
tenary of  the  Martyrdom  of  St.  Peter. 

XXVII.  Travels  in  Europe — Ireland — Progress  of  the  Church  in  the  Archdiocese 
of  Baltimore — The  American  Co. lege  in  Rome. 

XXVIII.  The  Dangers.that  Threaten  the  Destruction  of  our  Free  Institutions  — 
The  Remedy — The  Craving  for  Sensuous  Indulgence. 

XXIX.  Death  of  the  Verj'  Rev.  B.  J.  Spalding— Visitation  of  the  Diocese— 
The  Little  Sisters  of  the  Poor — The  Vatican  Council. 

XXX.  The  Vatican  Council — The  Postulatum  of  Archbishop  Spalding  — Let- 
ter to  Bishop  Dupanloup. 

XXXI.  The  Definition  of  Papal  Infallibility  not  only  Opportune,  but  Necessary 
^Devotion  of  the  American  Church  to  the  holy  See.  * 

XXXII.  The  Manner  in  which  the  Discussions  of  the  Vatican  Council  were 
Conducted— The  Infallibility  of  the  Pope — Liberty  and  Liberalism — 
Tour  in  Switzerland. 

XXXIII.  The  Sacrilegious   Invasion   of    Rome — Archbishop    Spalding  returns 

Home — His  Reception  in  Baltimore  and  Washington  City — A  Re- 
trospect. 

XXXIV.  Last  Illness  and  Death  of  Archbishop  Spalding. 

It  is  published  in  the  best  style  possible,  and  makes  a  volume  of  nearly  five 
hundred  pages  8vo,  with  portrait  on  steel. 

BeveUed  Cloth $4  00 

Address 

The  Catholic  Publication  Society, 

LA  WBENCE  KEHOE,  Gen.  Agent, 

9  BARCLAY  ST.,  NEW  YORK. 


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